Lieutenant Minoru Hayashi observed the prisoner sitting with Petty Officer Tamamura in the radio station. It was only the second time he had seen a foreigner. “He was young and skinny,” Hayashi-san remembered. “He was slumped over somewhat. He looked like he had lost his personal power. He looked unhappy, limp—like he gave up. I felt sorry for the prisoner. He wasn’t some big guy to hate.”
Tamamura did not tell Captain Yoshii the prisoner never buckled down to work in the two days he was there. But there were about twenty others working in the radio station, and word got around. “I heard that he was not very good in intercepting and translating messages,” Petty Officer Shohei Shiina said.
As word spread, Yoshii’s first impression was reinforced, and he made a decision. “Yoshii called me to his office,” Tamamura-san said, “and told me, ‘The Americans may land tomorrow or in a few days. You, all of us, should be prepared to die. And today at four P.M., we are going to execute the prisoner.”
“Why did Captain Yoshii order Jimmy’s death?” I asked Tamamura-san years later. He explained:
For Yoshii it was an effort to raise morale. He had to prepare everyone for dying. We were all going to die, we thought. We knew the American instruments of death were going to come at us and that we had no hope. We were all going to die together; the prisoner would go first. “It can’t be helped,” everyone thought. It’s a mass hysteria, wartime hysteria. It’s impossible to analyze it unless you were in that bizarre situation. The reactions of a cornered rat are not normal. And besides, when the Americans came and we were all going to die, how could we hold on to a prisoner?
Tamamura tried to cover for Jimmy, promising Yoshii that the prisoner would be a big help in the future. “I told the captain that Dye was working and to have his life saved, but it was impossible,” Tamamura-san later testified. “The captain told me in front of some officers, ‘You tried to save his life, didn’t you? That is not good.’ Later I heard that a number of times.”
As young Tamamura made his way back to Jimmy in the radio station, he wondered, “Should I tell him he is going to die this afternoon? Or should I not? If I was in his shoes, which would I prefer? I could not tell him. I thought that in his nervous mental state, it would have been too much for him.
“We sat and talked all morning,” Tamamura said. “He talked a lot about the gunner on his plane. Dye was always worried about him.”
As Jimmy and Fumio chatted in the radio station, Captain Yoshii announced plans to the others in the mess hall. Lieutenant Shinichi Matsutani later recalled, “After the morning meal, the captain said, ‘Today at four o’clock we shall execute the prisoner. I shall have the young officers execute him to build up their nerve. Hayashi and Matsutani, both of you will cut.’” Then Yoshii turned to the unit’s doctor, Mitsuyoshi Sasaki, and ordered, “You will remove the liver.”
Lieutenants Matsutani and Hayashi and Dr. Sasaki were dumbstruck.
“I was very troubled because it was so sudden,” said Matsutani. “I asked the captain, ‘If the army is supposed to handle the prisoners, is it all right for the navy to do such a thing?’ In answer to this, Captain Yoshii did not say anything but just glared at me.”
“When I received this order, I thought a terrible thing had happened,” Lieutenant Hayashi-san, who was just twenty-two years old at the time, later told me. “I protested that this embarrasses me, but the captain just said, ‘This is an order; you must do it.’ As I was before many officers, I could protest no further because I was afraid I may be shamed.” Dr. Sasaki was so shocked all he could do was mumble a yes and then leave the room.
After breakfast, the three who had been ordered to take part in Jimmy’s execution went individually to Captain Yoshii to protest. Yoshii had said he was going to have the “young officers” behead Jimmy, but he could have said “young and unruly.” Both Lieutenants Matsutani and Hayashi had had their run-ins with the captain in the past. Yoshii was a career military man, but Matsutani and Hayashi had been students and, of course, Dr. Sasaki was an educated man. All three remembered the captain’s oft-repeated notion: “People who come from schools have democratic leanings; that is why I am going to hammer this out of you with strict training.” He had never trusted them and was not shy about reminding them of their fates if they displeased him. Once, Lieutenant Matsutani failed to perform some coding correctly. He wasn’t trained sufficiently for it, but the captain saw it strictly as a matter of discipline. “What do you think orders are?” Captain Yoshii bellowed at young Matsutani. “Up to now I have many times reminded you of your disobedience to orders, but from now on I will never forgive you. In case of disobedience, I will punish you and have this spread throughout the whole navy.”
“Punishment would have meant being reported in the navy bulletin, published throughout the navy,” Matsutani recalled. “Punishment is the most disgraceful thing in the military service. As a result of such punishment, when the time for promotion comes, I would not be promoted.”
But even with this history, Lieutenant Matsutani went to Captain Yoshii’s office to argue his case. “The prisoner was borrowed from the army for monitoring purposes, and what is the reason for his execution?” Lieutenant Matsutani asked. “In answer to this question, the captain said, ‘You do not have to ask questions; rely on me.’”
“I said, ‘I cannot possibly cut a human being,’” Matsutani recalled. ‘If you are going to execute him, choose someone else.’ In answer to this, the captain said, ‘You will have to do this nevertheless. I have spoken many times about what would happen if you disobey orders; you should know this.’”
Like Matsutani, Lieutenant Minoru Hayashi was no blood-and-guts fighter, but that was the point: Captain Yoshii was picking on him because he was the runt of the litter. Hayashi was small and mild-mannered, the least likely person to slice off someone’s head. He came from the country town of Kofu, where, as a high school student, he had observed the workings of an army base there. “I found the soldiers were badly treated,” Hayashi-san told me years later. “I came to hate the army. They were serving as worse than servants to their superiors. They competed with each other to loosen their superiors’ foot bindings. Superiors hit their subordinates. The army was brutal.” So when he was forced to quit college after two and a half years and enlist in a service, Hayashi chose the navy, where he became a technical officer. On Chichi Jima, it was his job to keep the radar equipment working. Yoshii had singled out a meek, quiet technician to perform a grisly deed.
“When you got an order from an officer, you were to treat it as if it came from the emperor,” Hayashi-san told me. “Ever since I entered the navy, we had been taught that a subordinate is not to inquire about the orders from the superior officer.”
But Lieutenant Hayashi was troubled.
“I was an officer, so I had a sword,” Hayashi-san told me, “but I had never used one. I had no such experience and I desperately wanted to escape. But we were on an island. There was no escape.
“I was young,” he added, “and Captain Yoshii was an older military person. His eyes were sharp and scary. He had a threatening atmosphere about him. I was scared of him.”
In spite of “emperor’s orders,” a lifetime of having been trained not to question authority, and Yoshii’s well-known threat—My policy is to execute all persons who do not obey orders—Lieutenant Hayashi mustered his courage and entered the captain’s office.
“I told Yoshii I didn’t want to behead the prisoner,” Hayashi-san recalled. “Captain Yoshii said, ‘You know what happens to an officer who refuses an order.’
“At that point,” Hayashi-san said, “I expected to be executed if I did not obey, or at least receive life imprisonment. I did not like it, but I accepted the order.”
“Today at four o’clock, the execution shall be held in front of the fuel storage house,” Captain Yoshii sternly instructed his young charge. “And you will be there.”
When Dr. Sasaki, who had been ordered to cut out Jimm
y’s liver, told the captain, “I cannot possibly do such a thing,” Yoshii’s face turned red and he shouted, “What are you saying? Are you going to disobey my order? The young people now do not have any nerve.”
Dr. Sasaki realized he had no choice and he quietly left.
“There was no other way than to obey,” Tamamura-san later told me. “There just wasn’t any disobedience at that time in Japan. We were all covered by society’s huge blanket and it was impossible to go against the tide. Disobedience was not something that was recognized within the framework of the military or society. Disobeying would be a strictly personal action and he’d have to pay for it. With his life.”
Jimmy and Tamamura chatted at the radio station all morning and through lunch. At 2 P.M., Captain Yoshii’s orderly came by and told Tamamura that the captain wanted Jimmy’s leather jacket and white scarf. Tamamura told Jimmy to hand them over. He did so, but this must have alarmed him. It was February, the nights were chilly, and everyone else had a jacket; now Jimmy didn’t. And his last connection with home—Gloria’s white silk scarf—was now gone.
The two boys continued their chat. Then, about 4 P.M., the orderly returned. It was time to go.
Fumio Tamamura looked into Jimmy Dye’s blue eyes. They had been born just a few months apart on opposite coasts as Americans. Tamamura thought of what to say. “I told him that Captain Yoshii is going to parade you in front of the men and then you’ll come back,” Tamamura-san recalled years later. “I just said you are going to be exhibited to the men on the hill. To this day I still think it was better not to tell him.”
Jimmy and Tamamura walked about fifty yards from the radio station toward a crowd gathered near a freshly dug hole. Conspicuous were Captain Yoshii and two lieutenants in dress uniform with sheathed swords. Tamamura told Jimmy to sit at the edge of the hole with his feet dangling. Then he was blindfolded. He must have sensed what was next.
“I told him to sit still and that the commander was going to question him,” Tamamura-san said. “He didn’t say anything. But he was pretty nervous.”
In Jimmy’s last letter to his father, he had written, “I’m still just a boy.” That boy was terrified.
Captain Yoshii now addressed the assembly: “Watch closely. What today is another’s fate may be your fate tomorrow.”
“It was a rephrasing of an old Japanese saying,” Tamamura-san said. “It’s used when someone has an unfortunate accident. Something to the effect that what happens to someone else may happen to me tomorrow.”
Tamamura-san told me, “When Captain Yoshii said, ‘Watch closely,’ the atmosphere was very somber. We felt these were not light words. We felt it was the truth. The American navy surrounded the island. We really did think we would die the next day.”
“Kire!” Captain Yoshii barked. “Cut!”
Lieutenant Hayashi obediently came forward. He described what happened next: “‘I will start,’ I said to the captain, saluting. I stepped to the rear of the prisoner. I saluted the prisoner and cut.”
“Lieutenant Hayashi was trembling when he executed the American,” added Petty Officer Kaoru Sakamoto. “Everyone knew that Lieutenant Hayashi was not the man to do the job.”
“The first blow cut into the flyer’s neck about one inch,” Petty Officer Rokuro Kuriki later testified. “The flyer’s head fell forward a little, but the body did not fall over.”
Jimmy had probably lost consciousness. An inch-deep cut would have severed his spinal cord. Witnesses testified that they saw blood coming from a wound on the back of his neck. “Hayashi cut just a little,” Tamamura-san said, “but that was enough to break Dye’s backbone.”
The grisly scene engendered little of the Yamato damashii fervor Captain Yoshii had hoped for. Hayashi later said, “After I struck the blow, I dived among the crowd.” Petty Officer Sakamoto testified, “When the first blow struck, most of the men turned their backs. The flyer was groaning.” Petty Officer Shohei Shiina said, “I ran away after the first blow.”
“Lieutenant Matsutani was supposed to be the second executioner,” Tamamura-san said, “but he faltered and was standing there frozen.”
“I trembled when I saw Lieutenant Hayashi cut,” Matsutani testified. “I thought that the prisoner had already died. But the captain said, ‘Next, Lieutenant Matsutani cut.’ I saluted the captain and stepped two or three steps toward the prisoner. Then the captain came up to me and advised, ‘A person who is going to cut for the first time, if he puts too much strength in it, he will cut himself, so do not put too much strength in.’”
“The second blow cut at least half of the neck, because his head fell forward,” said Kuriki.
“After the second blow, Dye’s body fell forward into the hole,” Tamamura-san said. “As he was sitting, he just toppled over.”
“After the second stroke,” Petty Officer Teresada Aruga recalled, “I and other men broke ranks and ran away.”
A Flyboy had been killed, but there was no cheering. “There was just silence,” Tamamura-san said.
Captain Yoshii motioned to Dr. Sasaki, who came forward.
“The doctor cut open the abdomen,” said Kuriki. “He took out the liver. This was put in a box and taken to the galley.”
“Six or seven people—including Yoshii—surrounded the body as the liver was being taken out,” Tamamura-san said. “I was there, but I did not care to see the body. I saw the liver being carried away toward the HQ building of the radio station.”
“After the liver had been removed,” Tamamura-san added, “the doctor looked up—I think it was to the officer of the day, standing quite a distance away from the spot, and asked him, ‘I think that is enough. I don’t want to cut any more. Don’t you think that is enough?’ The officer replied, ‘Yes, don’t cut any more.’”
“After I removed the liver,” Dr. Sasaki testified, “I sewed up the incision and with the remaining thread sewed the neck. I cleaned off the blood. After I finished this, I placed his hands together and I saluted the body. When I did this, there were some people who laughed, but as for myself, I felt that I should give the body every respect possible.”
Jimmy was buried in the hole where he lay.
“I don’t think there was any formal dismissal,” Tamamura-san told me. “They just dissolved, went their own way. It was a clear, sunny day.”
Twenty-year-old Petty Officer Tamamura walked from the scene back to his post at the radio station.
“I felt confusion, sadness, horror,” he remembered. “I had never seen anyone killed before. Taking someone’s life is not something to be taken lightly. When something like that occurs and everybody has shared the knowledge, you don’t talk about it.”
And the executioners hardly reveled in the memory.
“I hate to remember it,” Hayashi-san told me. “I never discussed it with Matsutani. We didn’t do it willingly. Matsutani was not the type of person to do it either. He was a sensitive person, a Tokyo University graduate.”
By ordering the beheading, navy captain Yoshii had proven he was a big brave Spirit Warrior like army major Matoba. Now he would prove he was Matoba’s equal as a Spirit cannibal.
“I believe it was dark when a sailor brought in a package of something wrapped up in a newspaper,” Yoshii’s orderly, Suzuki, later testified. “The sailor told me it was sent by the captain and that I should keep custody of it. Therefore, I left it in the galley. Later on in the evening, the captain requested me to bring this package to him. Yoshii said, ‘Bring me the flesh which is in your keeping.’”
Suzuki unwrapped the package for Yoshii. “It was a very dark-colored piece of flesh,” Suzuki said. “I did not know whether liver looks like this, and I cannot say that it was liver.”
Yoshii was alone in his quarters with the package when Suzuki left him. But there was a sake-drinking party going on in the nearby officers’ mess.
“I understood the officers had a party,” Tamamura-san said. “I wasn’t there, but I understand that part
of the liver was served to all of the officers at the party that night, and they were forced to eat it by Captain Yoshii. They could not refuse.”
“I heard that Yoshii had liver cooked and put it on the table and told everyone to eat it,” said Hayashi.
“I heard that Yoshii brought the liver personally to the officers’ mess,” said Petty Officer Sakamoto, “and that most of the officers deserted the captain’s table when he brought liver and ordered them to eat it.”
(Rumors swirled around Mount Yoake the next day, and still exist today on the island, that Jimmy Dye’s body was hacked up and served in the enlisted men’s soup. Other than the persistent rumor, I can find nothing to substantiate this. Apparently, the extraction of his liver led to exaggerated stories among the enlisted men of his entire body being cut up.)
Spirit cannibal Yoshii kept the remainder of Jimmy’s liver in his room. “Every time an officer went into Captain Yoshii’s room,” Tamamura-san said, “he would offer them a part of the liver, and they were afraid to eat it and afraid to refuse to eat it.”
Later in life, Tamamura read about the practice of combatants eating the livers of their enemy. “This is not a Japanese tradition,” he explained. “Chinese warriors would eat enemies’ livers with the idea that it would transfer power. Captain Yoshii, being of the old school, probably felt it would. Eating the liver is supposed to arouse hatred or animosity, I guess. Devouring the liver is one way to overcome the enemy.
“Captain Yoshii gave me a little piece of Jimmy Dye’s liver,” Tamamura-san told me. “I didn’t know what to do with it. I felt it was part of a body and I shouldn’t just chuck it away. So I passed a needle through it and strung it up and left it hanging. Eventually, it got moldy and I had to throw it away.”
Jimmy had been dead for a week when his parents received the March 7, 1945, telegram that began with the dreaded words, “The Navy Department deeply regrets to inform you . . .”
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