A Thousand Stitches (11 page)

After our summer vacation that year, the other members of the Riding Club talked nonstop about Mr. Oichi's restriction. Eventually, as President of the Riding Club, I found myself searching for civilian horses for the club members to ride outside the Regiment. It took a long time, but I finally found one. The horse—and there was only one—belonged to Mr. Miyamoto, the owner of a transport business. More and more of the business involved truck transport, and Chestnut, a mahogany brown mare with a white blaze, was rarely called into service. Mr. Miyamoto was glad to have us exercise her. We took turns after school, and each day one of us took Chestnut out. At first we stayed close to Mr. Miyamoto's stable, but soon we were roaming all over the city. We were a great object of curiosity. College students had never before been seen horse riding in Matsuyama. As people got used to seeing us, they would wave and smile. I was always proud to be out on Chestnut, and knew I looked good in my Kosho uniform.

Riding Chestnut was one of the treats of that year. As college students who would soon be in the military, mounting tension was our constant companion—at Kosho, at the Regiment, throughout the city; it pervaded the entire nation. While I know I felt this, I was somehow also managing to drift. All of the things I heard on the radio were far away and had little to do with me, or my everyday life with Father in Matsuyama. But changes had crept into our daily lives. The coupon system was well entrenched, and it wasn't just sugar that was hard to get. Now rice too was rationed, and even clothing. Fuel was tough enough for the military; it was virtually impossible for civilians. The few cars on the road in Matsuyama were official. People were taking the trolley, riding their bicycles, or walking.

And the regime that flowed from the National Mobilization Act now touched everyone's life—a large number of civilians were conscripted into war industries. Mother, with her practical nursing skills, had been in the forefront. More and more familiar faces vanished from my life as they went off to duties in faraway places.

The
Battle of Midway in June of 1942 was obviously important to ­Japan's Pacific position. The news reports were quite stirring. Thoughts of dramatic sea battles filled my head for weeks, and it was comforting that the press reported that a U.S. carrier had been sunk while our warships were only slightly damaged. So I was especially excited when I got a note from Yamamura-sensei in September inviting me to a party.
Sensei
organized the party in honor of Keisuke Mori, who had been four years ahead of me at Matsuchu.

Keisuke had been in the Navy since his graduation from Matsuchu. He was serving on the aircraft carrier
Hiryu
during the Battle of Midway. He was home to finish recuperating: he had been burned on his face and his hands. Keisuke's story of the battle was heartrending. He described how the
Hiryu
was bombarded, caught fire, went up in flames, and eventually sank. I looked at Keisuke's injuries, but I couldn't believe what he was saying. And I simply couldn't process what he said about the sinking of the three other carriers: the
Akagi,
the
Kaga,
and the
Soryu.
It wasn't true. It was impossible for the Imperial Navy to be defeated and turn and run. What Keisuke said couldn't be right—it wasn't what had been reported; it wasn't what we had been told and it wasn't what I was sure, in my heart and in my soul, to be true.

As
my third year at Kosho started in April 1943, I took the physical for the draft and passed. But I was deferred so I could finish my studies. At the oral interview, when I was asked if I preferred the infantry or the cavalry, I had Chestnut in mind as I answered cavalry. And as I walked home I thought too of Mother. In the infantry, I would be drafted into Matsuyama Regiment; for the cavalry, I would go first to Zentsuji, where she was stationed.

But in just a few weeks, my old dream of the Navy came back again. The Navy announced that it was recruiting a large number of college graduates for the Naval Reserves. The test was at the end of May. The prospect of flying would be a possibility for me in the Naval Reserves. This time I asked Father. I was going into the military no matter what. I might as well take this one last chance for my dream if I could. I knew Father was still reluctant, but he wrote to Mother, and when her answer came, he told me they had agreed that I should try. Half a train car of Kosho students traveled together to Takamatsu to take the exam.

Mie, 1943

Gen had slept late but was in the living room with a cup of coffee when Michiko returned from early morning errands.

“Gen-chan,” she said, “is there anything you need?”

“No, Gran, thanks. I'm ready to start again whenever you are.”

She knelt on the
tatami
at the entrance to the living room and said, “Let me get these flowers arranged and then we can start.”

“Anytime, Gran, but I do want to ask you about this Sam guy. I've never heard anything about him. Are you sure you want me to read the next chapter? Is it going to get hotter?”

“Gen-chan, hot is hardly what I'd call what you've read so far.”

“‘That moment shimmers for me still…' seems pretty hot to me, Gran.”

“I only saw him once more after he left Matsuyama to join the Navy.”

“I'm interested in what will come next. And what about Gramps, Gran? What did he think about all of this?”

“Gen-chan, I didn't meet your grandfather until the last months of the war. Long after the time you were just reading about.” She turned and picked up flowers that she had spread out on the newspaper she had carried them home in and started arranging them in the
tokonoma
. Gen could only see her back.

“Gran, I haven't talked to you about Gramps since his funeral last year. I miss him.”

“I know. I do too, my darling.” There was silence until Michiko finished. When she positioned the vase in the
tokonoma
she turned back to her grandson, got up off her knees, crossed from the
tatami
room into the living room, picked up her needlework, and said, “What's next?”

———

I was thinking
about President Tanaka as Father and I walked out of the early autumn sunlight and onto the ferry. Just five days earlier, on September 7, 1943, I had stood with six others in the office of the President of Kosho. In August, word had arrived that we were among the very few—fewer than 5,000 of the 70,000 who had taken the special exam in May—who had passed and who were to become Naval Reserve officers. Our graduation from Kosho, scheduled for the next year, had been accelerated by six months because we were headed for formal service to the nation.

The hastily arranged ceremony was unusual but no real surprise. We were military age. We were strong and healthy. Our country needed us. Glory awaited us.

“Your
diplomas will be sent to your families a little later,” the president said. One of the many details of normal life swept aside; they were just too slow to keep up with the rush of events. He looked each of us in the eye and told us that we should be proud to be Kosho graduates. “All my best wishes for a successful military career. Take care of yourselves, and come home alive.”

As we filed from his office, I thought of the kindness of this gentle man, of my wonderful experiences at Kosho, and how he didn't, any more than any of us, believe what he said. Despite his best efforts to be positive, his words were suffused with resignation and melancholy. His sorrow was so close to the surface that his formal demeanor barely masked it.

Crisis was in the air. There had been news reports that Italy had surrendered to the Allies. Those reports disappeared quickly, but rumors about the war in Europe continued. Each day brought a new one more shocking than the last. The official news focused on the Pacific war, battlefield successes, and civilian efforts to support the military; the stentorian, authoritative voices poured from the radios, backed by stirring martial music. Despite all that, everyone knew that military service was essentially synonymous with certain death. Perhaps that was why it was easy for Mother to get special leave on short notice and come home just to see me off.

As we approached the benches on the lower deck, Father reached for the bags I was carrying and said, “I'll find a place for these and save us seats. Why don't you go up on deck? I'll join you in a minute.”

I leaned
over the handrail and scanned the crowd on the dock, shading my eyes against the morning sun. My glance moved from Mother's solid figure to those around her—Kosho friends, as well as buddies from Matsuchu, some Bancho classmates, and neighbors from Yanai-machi. All the adults had the same look on their faces I had seen on President Tanaka's. By the time Father came to stand beside me, murmuring that he had found a good place to store my bags, the ferry was beginning to move. He raised his hand to wave at Mother, and she and I locked eyes. As the boat pulled me away, I thought that this would be my last sight of her, my last sight of all these dear and familiar friends, and my last sight of Matsuyama. The Inland Sea, which cradled and sustained our city, which was never far from our thoughts, the source of so much of the beauty in our lives, would carry me away. At its other side would be hustle, bustle, challenge, glory—and death. I hoped I looked stoic as they watched me fade from view.

The ferry was bound for Hiroshima. As Father and I settled in on the benches he had saved by stacking them with my bags, I thought about the last time I had taken this trip. In March, my entire Kosho class had spent our spring vacation in “voluntary labor service” at Kure, a Naval Arsenal outside Hiroshima. We had all traveled together to and from Hiroshima. The group of long-time friends had enjoyed being away from home, but the work—packing gunpowder destined, we believed, for the huge guns on Japan's mammoth battleships, the
Yamato
and the
Musashi,
was unfamiliar, rather difficult, and, I realize now, extremely dangerous. But it had been an adventure for us, and I remember how proud we were of our patriotic work. No one told us anything directly because so many of the details about the
Yamato
and
Musashi
were classified and closely guarded state secrets, but we were impressed that the explosives we were working with would be used in the largest guns—forty-six centimeters—in the history of battleships. And while we were at Kure we ate very well. The military provided items that had long disappeared from the civilian diet. I especially remember the sweet brown tea we had on breaks. Sugar was scarce at home. At first the tea was so sweet it was shocking, but it soon became a much-anticipated mid-morning and mid-afternoon treat.

When
we reached Hiroshima Port, Father and I took a streetcar to the train station. I remembered a few sights from the spring, and enjoyed the view of the mountains behind the city. The cherry blossoms were long gone, and the trees had not yet taken on their autumn colors. I added these few impressions to those I had already had—but I still had no real sense of the city. When we had all been there in the spring, we were never allowed to leave our dormitory in the evening; the threat of air raids was too great. At Hiroshima Station, Father and I boarded a train for Osaka. We changed trains there and finally reached Matsusaka in Mie Prefecture late in the afternoon.

As
we were settling in at our inn and consulting with the maid about dinner, Father rummaged in the basket he had brought with him and pulled out a bottle of
sake.
I couldn't imagine where he had gotten it. He handed it over to the maid and asked her to warm it up and serve it with our meal. My twenty-first birthday had been a few weeks earlier, in mid-August, and this was the first time Father allowed me to drink with him. Now we were the two adult men of our family, drinking together as we ate our dinner, on the eve of a war-time parting. We talked and talked that night, but the next morning I couldn't really remember what we said. To my regret, to this day, I still can't remember.

The next morning, when we got up early again, there were no words left, and really no need for them. I had to report no later than nine
a.m.
We walked from the inn to the train station, and took the first train to Karasu Station. Father went with me on the long walk from the station to the front gate of Mie Naval Air Station (NAS), where there was a crowd of young men, their families, and friends. We got as close to the gate as we could, and put all our bags down. Father grabbed both of my hands in his. “Stay well,” he said, paused, and looked like he was going to say something else. Instead, he gave the slightest shake of his head and turned away. As he did, I saw tears in his eyes. He didn't look back, and as I watched him walk away, I thought that that would be the last I would ever see of him.

I struggled to the guardhouse with my bags, had my name checked off a long list, was directed to Division One, Barracks Five, and stepped into the base and my life in the military.

Following
instructions, I dumped my things on one of the beds arranged in the large open room of the first floor of the barracks and walked to the broad parade ground. Hundreds, if not thousands, of young men milled about. Like me, everyone was wearing his college uniform. I scanned the badges on the caps, looking, in vain, for colleagues from Kosho. Soon enough, an officer climbed the platform at the front of the parade ground and barked “Attention!” through a loud speaker. “You are all to line up. Division One at this end; Division Twelve at that end. Each Division should make three lines.” Once we had scrambled into a semblance of order, the officer, who was the Vice Commander, told us to go back to our barracks and change into the work suits we would find there. We would no longer need our school uniforms. Ever again. Orientation would commence that afternoon.

The white cotton work suits were stacked on tables on the second floor of the barracks. As we changed, I looked around—it was another vast room with tables and benches arranged on either side of a central walkway. We weren't due back at the parade ground for a while. My comrades were sitting on the benches, chatting and getting to know each other. In my stiff new clothes, I sat down and started talking to a tall handsome guy. Tetsuo Kobayashi was from Tokyo and had been a long-distance runner at Chuo University. I liked him immediately. I told him about Matsuyama, Yamamura-sensei, the band, the riding club, and my parents. I didn't mention Michiko.

When
we reassembled on the parade ground for orientation, the divisions were separated and introduced to our commanding officers. Lieutenant Senior Grade Yamamoto, an impressive Naval Academy graduate, introduced himself. He explained again that fewer than seven percent of those who took the test had been accepted into the special Naval Reserve program for college graduates. Half of the 4,988 who had passed, he told us, were at Mie; the others were beginning their training at Tsuchiura Naval Air Station north of Tokyo. He then went on to tell us about Mie NAS, which had opened only the previous year. He emphasized that it was an honor to be at a beautiful location on Ise Bay not far from the Grand Shrine of Ise, the most sacred of the nation's Shinto shrines—the repository of Amaterasu's sacred mirror, one of the nation's treasures. I stood a little taller in the autumn sunshine, happy that, come what may, I was finally part of the Navy elite.

In the short time that Mie NAS had been operating, twelve groups had preceded us through the training program. We were the Thirteenth Class. Lieutenant Yamamoto also told us that more than 2,000
yokaren
were living and training at Mie.
Yokaren
was short for
Yoka Renshusei,
Reserve Trainees. They were teenage volunteers who were being trained as pilots. I thought it a bit strange that future Naval officers and raw recruits like the teenagers—many of them farm boys—were sharing the base. I wondered why such low-ranking types were being trained to fly, when one of my dreams, and, I was sure, the dreams of most of the others who took the exam in May, was to become an aviator. But I told myself that the military must have a good reason, and put it out of my mind. When Lieutenant Yamamoto finished, he left us with the three lieutenants junior grade who were in charge of our barracks.

The junior lieutenants took over, marched us back to the barracks and began our first training exercise—drills on getting into and out of bed. They lined us up in the central hallway of the first floor. One of them yelled “To bed!” We ran, jumped out of our clothes and into bed. At the shout “Reveille,” we jumped up, got our clothes on, made our beds, and lined up in the middle of the room. We did it over and over until the junior lieutenants were satisfied that we could get up and assembled in thirty seconds, and get ourselves into bed, again in thirty seconds. This was our first introduction to Navy discipline.

The next few days were spent on physical and mental aptitude tests. The results determined our assignments. The vision and balance tests were especially rigorous. I was proud that I could read even the tiniest items on the eye chart and walk a straight line after being spun about in a barbershop-style chair. We were also set to work adding sums. On the monitor's signal, we opened test books, to find them filled with nothing but rows and columns of numbers. We were told to begin by adding each of the horizontal rows, and then the totals of each row on the page, and then the total of each page as we went along through the book. They kept us at it for about three minutes. Time was obviously of the essence.

We were also instructed in Navy etiquette. I'm sure everyone was as thrilled as I was to learn that we were considered officers—officially something between petty officer and ensign. Like all Naval officers, we were expected to behave as gentlemen. We were to be in neatly pressed uniforms at all times we were not wearing our work suits. When not sitting down, we were to stand erect. We could sit only on chairs, sofas, and benches—never on the edges of objects not made for sitting. And we were to carry only briefcases or suitcases. Never the traditional
furoshiki.
We always had to salute any senior officer we encountered and return the salutes of junior officers.