Those Days Just Before the War Ended (by Honobono)

　
　On December 7, 1944, I was working in rice fields vastly spread on the southern side of Uji River. I was a first-year student of Kyoto First Middle School. I was mobilized as an agricultural student worker, that is, all students older than 12 years old were ordered to work in fields or factories because most adult men had been sent to the war. While carrying several long bamboo poles, I suddenly tottered right and left and thought 'damn, it's difficult to carry bamboo poles'. But it was not true. The fact was whole fields were trembling and rolling. It was a large earthquake (Magnitude 7.9; 'Tounankai earthquake'). This big earthquake, however, was not covered by the media because news which disturbed the public was not reported during wartime.

　December 8 was a day off, as we first-year students worked the day before. I was resting in my room and my mother was knitting downstairs. Someone opened the door and came in. They were two teachers of my elder brother. My brother was a forth-year student of Kyoto Third Moddle School, but at that time, he was mobilized and sent to the Nakashima airplane factory in Handa city near Nagoya.

　At first my mother thought that they came to recommend my brother to the Naval Flight Preparatory Course. She said something as an excuse like my brother was too small or unqualified or such things.
All of sudden, I heard her crying out, like screaming, to my room on the second floor. It was my first time that I had heard her crying.

　When I went downstairs the teachers had already left. My mother was very upset and told me shortly that my brother died at the factory during the earthquake. 'That'snot true', I tried to comfort her but in vain. At that time there was no telephone in my house or at the neighbors, so I went to the post office to call my father's office. My father worked for a busy munitions factory as a chief, but he rushed back home. I felt relieved when I saw my father's face.

　My mother held on to my father crying, but my father just said 'If he died there's nothing we can do now'. 'Don't say such things..', my mother appeared disapproving, but there was no time but to prepare to go to Handa city. Owing to an unusual situation, we could get two tickets for Handa city within a day though it was difficult to get train tickets during wartime.
　Only young children, such as my younger sister and I, stayed at home. I still don't remember what we ate or how we spent our days. I just had a vague impression that the neighbors were very kind to us. After three days, my brother came back home in a small urn. I carried my brother's urn hanging from my neck in front of my chest. All the neighbors stood at both sides of the Yamabana road to welcome him.

　That night, under the black-covered light, my mother showed us his remains and told us about my brother, but she didn't say anything about his instant death. It was when I later attended a reunion of my brother's friends, where a memorial monument for the student mobilization was built, that I was told about his death by his old friend Mr. Ishiguro. Mr. Ishiguro said my brother was hit by bricks and his white brain was exposed. 'Last effort'. That was the last line of my brother's diary. He always wrote these words in the last line of his diary each day, which means his attitude was always get-up-and-go towards next steps, toward going to upper school, toward the future and everything. It must be a real disappointment for my brother himself, to die young. It is too cruel. I pray for him.

　After war, my brother's classmates edited and published the records of student mobilization. These records have been occasionally fictionalized to novels and dramas, and even this year the 60th anniversary of student mobilization, a book titled 'Epitaph of divested youth' was published. Other publications are as follows:
- Student mobilization records editing board 'Kurenai no Chi wa Moyuru (Blazing Blood' (1971)
- Kazuo Watanabe 'Ah, Kurenai no Chi wa Moyuru (Ah, Blazing Blood)' (1986)
- Akio Sato 'Aiseki 1000nin no Seishun (Lamentation for 1000 Youth)' (2004)

　As my brother was small and weak from birth, my mother always encouraged and inspired him with words like 'Though you lose in sports, win in study' or 'Even though you finish last, never become a dropout.' And my brother always kept her words. Thus it must be unbearable for her to accept his death. When she died later, I found her always embracing his photo in her chest. She made a tanka (Japanese poem of thirty-one syllables) for him.
　- As a mum of you
　I embrace you in my chest.
　Never forget you
　Even for single moment
　Until my last day of life

　-Offering Daphne
　To the tomb of my son
　I enjoyed talking
　To the tomb of my son
　On his memorial day

　-You are still present
　In many people's heart
　Though you died, my son
　You live an eternal life
　Along with their lives

　There is no deeper grief than a mother who has lost her child.
　However, Japan was in the midst of war under the slogan of ' Hundred million nations die rather than surrender', so that, it was inevitably desired that if the elder brother die the younger brother (me) should avenge him. As a result, I tried and passed the Military Preparatory School in April 1945. I became a child soldier of the Imperial Army.

　-Backyard of a barn
　My mum held me silently
　And swept over my back
　Fourteen years child is leaving
　After my brother had gone
　(Senyou Shimamura, Miyazaki city)

　I spent a strict but very constructive life in the Military Preparatory School that was located in Minamikawachi County in Osaka.
　On August 15, 1945, Japan lost the war. Immediately we were ordered to go home in disguised as shabby beggars because it was reported that the US army had already landed at Sakai and was on the way to the school to take over. The principal of the school, Mr. Noriaki Oono, was in Tokyo. Lieutenant colonel Mr. Horio, acting as a deputy, was worried that hot-blooded young soldier students would fight and waste their lives, so he decided to dismiss the school after a tough deliberation.

　On August 16 at night, we left the school in two's and three's with wearing camouflaged clothes. Residents around the school were enjoying the cool night air, after a long absence of peace, sitting on a long bench and having a chat with each other. I could still hear one of them say 'poor boy' to me as they watched us leaving quickly. I managed to make few train connections and at last I could take the Kyoto city train on the next night.

　When the train arrived at Kawaramachi Marutamachi station, I mistook it for the Imadegawa station and got down. At that moment, a conductor of the train bowed down respectfully to me as a child soldier, and said 'Gokurousamadeshita (a mixed meaning of thank you for your dedication and you've done well). I was more deeply touched than ever. Even now in a peaceful era, when I saw the corner of Kawaramachi Marutamachi on a live TV program of ekiden marathon races that are big popular events in Kyoto, I always am remind of that conductor.

　Next morning, my mother welcomed me at home. Both of us held each other's hands, cried and grieved for the loss of Japan. I spent a night at home. I went up to my room on the second floor and looked outside from the window. I was very impressed when I saw many lights were lit in each house across the rice fields. It was the moment I truly recognized the war was over.

　Next day, the radio said 'All the students of Osaka Military Preparatory School should come back to school'. I was surprised, and wore the camouflaged clothes again to go back school. When I arrived at school and went in the dining hall, it was plentiful with 'pumpkin' dishes. We cultivated those pumpkins during school life. They truly tasted very, very nice. However, some schoolmates had never come back to school.

　Child soldier, you were
　Kind and gentle to me.
　Said good-bye in tears
　Said see you again some day.
　On the day the war finished
　(Koshiro, Miyagi prefecture)

　From military school
　My brother came back home,
　When we lost the war
　Didn't say anything at all
　He was only fourteen years old
　(Masako Takada, Kawasaki city)

(Original sentences are on my website (Japanese):
http://homepage2.nifty.com/hideochiai/)

Hideo Ochiai (handle: Honobono)