OPEN END-O
The Healing Begins
By Ellen Endo
Saturday, Aug. 9, 2008

“What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), British writer

Shoji Takahashi, a reader in Can­ada, learned about the “Wings of Defeat” documentary in Open End-O recently recounting the background of the Tokkotai, or kamikaze pilots of World War II. He felt compelled to share a story of his own.
Here’s what he wrote:

“I have a cousin, Hiro Takahashi, who lives in San Mateo and who sends me regularly clippings from Rafu Shimpo. One of the clippings was an article written by you about the famous kamikaze pilots.

“Sachi, my wife, was born in Ka­goshima and among her many cous­ins living in Japan were two Tokkotai. One of them, Hideo Kodama, came to visit us in Toronto some years ago.

“I asked him how he managed to stay away from the (kamikaze) mis­sion. His reply was that the day of the mission, he was ill and was permit­ted to stay at the base. However, his younger brother, age 22, went on the mission, never to come back.

“I placed myself in their mother’s situation, and I felt anger. Hideo was a normal man who was glad to be alive, not a fanatic.”

Shoji and Sachi were able to spend time with Hideo in 1970 and see the Osaka Expo. Hideo was living in Osaka and working for a transport company that was assisting with the American and Russian exhibits.

After Sachi’s father passed away, Shoji lost contact with Hideo but clearly has never forgotten him.

Sixty-seven years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, are we as a Japanese and Japanese American community able to look back with an academic perspective?

Author Robert Stinnett, in his 1999 book, “Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor,” refutes the official story that the 1941 attack was a surprise. Stinnett based his state­ments on a secret memo dated Oct. 7, 1940 from Arthur McCollum of the Office of Naval Intelligence in which he enumerates eight provocations intended to induce Japan to make a “mistake.”

Further, Stinnett states that this cru­cial intelligence information was with­held in 1941 from Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and from General Walter Short, who was in charge of protecting U.S. military installations in Hawaii.

Because of the attack, both were accused of dereliction of duty and being unprepared. Kimmel was re­moved from office and reduced to the two-rank of Rear Admiral. He subsequently retired from the Navy with that rank.

General Short was removed from command of Pearl Harbor and ordered back to Washington, D.C. by Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall in disgrace. He was reduced in rank from his temporary rank of Lieuten­ant General to his permanent rank of Major General.

Stinnett’s findings were supported in October 2000 shortly after President Bill Clinton signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law. Among other provisions, the Act reversed the findings of nine previous Pearl Harbor investigations and found that both Kim­mel and Short were denied the crucial advance information.

Documentarian Risa Morimoto, whose uncle was a Tokkotai, plans to release a followup to her award-winning film, “Wings of Defeat.” Her documen­tary, well received by audiences both in the U.S. and Japan, may be the definitive work on the kamikaze.

The good news is that Morimoto is planning a follow-up piece, entitled “Wings of Defeat: Another Journey.” In the new piece, two American Navy veterans, Fred Mitchell and Gene Brick, whose ship was attacked by a kamikaze pilot, ask to meet with their former enemies.

After more than six decades, Mitchell still suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and wants to try to shed the hatred he has harbored for the Japanese. Brick simply wants to ask the surviving Japanese Tokkotai what drove them to sacrifice themselves.

Morimoto and her team traveled back to Japan in August 2007 with Mitchell and Brick, introducing them to three former kamikaze. According to the young Nisei filmmaker, the American and Japanese veterans, now in their 80s, faced each other, asking tough questions.

The result, she reports, “was an un­expected intimacy and newfound mutual respect.” The former enemies laughed and cried together, she says. “We wit­nessed a genuine and transformative reconciliation.”

I don’t know yet when the new documentary will be available but will let everyone know through the pages of the Rafu.

We’re fortunate that pundits like Morimoto and Stinnett have taken on the complex and multifarious task of scrutinizing the events leading up to and pertaining to WWII. Their ongoing search and courage helps to create a moral foundation that will have long-ranging benefits for all of us.

“Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything.”
—Alexander Hamilton, first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (1757-1804)

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Opinions expressed do not nec­essarily reflect those of The Rafu Shimpo or its management. Comments and/or inquiries should be directed to ellenendo@yahoo.com.