A Thousand Stitches

by Constance O'Keefe

  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.

  And we learned the Navy’s famous “five-minutes before” rule. “Five-minutes before Reveille” blaring from the PA system was the first thing we heard every morning, at five minutes to six. It woke us all up, but we were forbidden to move until we heard “Reveille.” The junior lieutenants stood observing us to make sure we stayed in our bunks, perfectly still, but poised to jump up and put on our work clothes as soon as the second announcement came. The “five-minutes before” gave us time to get ready to jump to meet the thirty-second deadline, time to think about the day ahead, time to push thoughts of home out of our heads, time to prepare for the future.

  After a week, one of the junior lieutenants said, “Good, you’re down to twenty-eight seconds.” We were dressed, our beds were made, we were lined up. On his order we ran to the parade ground, joined the other divisions, saluted the Commander, bowed toward the east, the rising sun, Tokyo, and the residence of the Emperor, and went through the morning calisthenics regime. Then back to the barracks for breakfast, which we ate very quickly. No one had to tell us that was part of our training for combat.

  Classes began at eight. Four fifty-minute sessions in the morning: maritime navigation, aerodynamics, astronomy, and Morse code. At the end of the first week, we were thrilled when the aeronautics instructor took us to a hanger to study various aircraft and their engines up close. We were outdoors every afternoon, our studies practical and very intense: gunnery, sailing, rowing, and hands-on navigation. There were also lots of organized sports and many raucous, hard-fought baseball games, or yakyu as we had learned to call it, the foreign term besuboru banished along with so many of the other phrases of everyday life before the war. After dinner at six, we had two more classes, finishing up at nine.

  This was our routine six days a week. Even though we had Sundays free, we weren’t allowed off the base. We still had no uniforms, and Naval cadets could not be seen in public in work suits. Finally, after three Sundays had passed, we got our uniforms and our government-issued daggers. Oh, we looked smart! The insignia on both sides of the front collar of the navy blue uniform had a golden stripe, indicating our status as officers. The daggers had gold-trimmed hafts and sheaths, but the blades were so dull that they couldn’t even peel apples. We didn’t care; they looked impressive, and we were sure we did too.

  The next Sunday we were finally allowed out. We walked the three kilo­meters to the station. I joined a group taking a train north to Tsu, the opposite direction from Matsuzaka, which I had seen with Father. Our principal goal was food. The Navy fed us well, but we were yearning for a change from the monotony of the mess hall. We found a restaurant, and I ate two huge helpings of noodles for lunch. Afterwards we strolled down the main street window shopping and turned into some of the side streets, trying to restore our fading memories of civilian life. Children pointed and said, “Look, Navy officers!” A group of boys gathered around us admiring our daggers.

  We were due back at the NAS at six. On our way back to Tsu Station, we passed a photographer’s studio. On a whim, we went in to have our pictures taken. I still have the group photo, as well as a single shot of just me in my uniform, looking stern, proud, and unbearably young. I suspect that some of the other photos taken that day sat for many years on family altar shelves. I wonder what became of them when the heartbroken mothers finally died themselves. Old faded sepia, lives now completely unremembered.…

  At the end of November, Mie NAS held a “Family Day” and allowed visitors on the base for four hours. I was surprised to find Father in the crowd at the gate. His tired face lit up when he saw me. I led him to the grassy area that surrounded the parade ground. We sat and talked and talked. Mother was about to be released from her duties at Zentsuji. The neighbors were all well. Life in Matsuyama sounded fine, but very, very far away. At noontime, Father began unpacking the knapsack he had brought with him. Four wooden boxes wrapped neatly in newspaper emerged. He opened the first two, which were full of rice, way too much for the two of us. The third had home-cooked fish and vegetables. He lifted the last box and slowly removed the lid—fried chicken. My ­favorite! With a smile he said he had cooked it late Saturday afternoon before he took the overnight ferry and then the train to get to Mie just in time to meet me. Just as I was admiring the chicken, my friend Kobayashi walked by. No one from his family had made it all the way from Tokyo. I called him over, and he joined Father and me in our feast. With the three of us, none of the food went to waste. Kobayashi heard the story of the fried chicken as he had his first taste of this treat. He ate with his fingers as we told him he must to really enjoy it, then licked his fingers and joked about what a well-traveled meal he was enjoying.

  After our lunch, Kobayashi and I walked Father to the station. As the train pulled away, I thought, with pleasure, that I had seen Father again. I doubted I would be lucky enough to have another chance. Kobayashi walked next to me back to the base in silence.

  Routine resumed. Kobayashi still joked about the fried chicken, asked about my parents, and told me about his mother and sister, but I knew that for him, just as for me, civilian life was becoming harder and harder to remember. Matsuyama was fading, fading and I grew more certain with each passing week that I had seen my last Seto Inland Sea sunset.

  Our briefings were giving us a better idea of military operations. Listening to them, we began to understand how dire things must really be at the front, and realized how the bad news was cloaked in special euphemisms. For example, troop “transfer” meant defeat and retreat. We all knew in our bones that Japan’s dominance of Asia was drawing to an end, and that the fate that awaited us, the fate of a glorious battle death that many of us had dreamed and hoped for, would, in fact, be nothing but a waste. But what still came out of our mouths was, “Wait till we get there. We’ll take care of it!” It was just that our hearts flopped about as we said it.

  At the end of January, Division Commander Lieutenant Yamamoto assembled us in the hallway of our barracks. After a little more than four months, our basic training was coming to an end; he had orders for each of us. Mine read “Flight training at Izumi Naval Air Corps.” I had no idea where Izumi was, but I didn’t care. I was to be trained as a pilot.

  9. SAM

  Izumi, 1944

  We arrived late, after marching, one hundred strong, from the train station. Lieutenant Senior Grade Takeuchi appeared as we ate a special dinner in the barracks. He was tall, lanky, and didn’t seem tough, but I believed him when he said, “When I’m finished training you, no one will be able to tell the difference between you reserve cadets and regular Navy.” He announced that formal orientation would begin first thing in the morning. There was only enough time for a quick bath before lights out.

  And now that we were assembled in the sunshine, the Lieutenant began by explaining where we were. “You’ve probably noticed how warm it is for early February,” he said, and went on to explain that Izumi ­Naval Air Corps was not only one of the newest in the nation but also the southern-most base in Kyushu. “The prevailing winds,” he told us, “are from the north, so the runway was built on a north-south axis.” I could hear planes landing and taking off as he spoke. Finally, I’m on an airbase.

  “As you may know, Kagoshima Prefecture is famous for its beautiful women, rugged mountains, volcanoes both dormant and active, outlandishly oversized radishes, and the good nature of its people. The locals are fond of us, have been generous to our young flight cadets like you, and especially kind to the yokaren. And there’s another thing the people of Izumi are fond of: cranes.”

  I thought, what craziness is this, cranes? But Lieutenant Takeuchi went on to explain, “
Thousands of cranes migrate annually from Siberia’s Lake Baikal and the Amur River regions, via China and Korea. They nest in this area from October to February. Most of them are kurozuru, common cranes, or manazuru, white-naped cranes, but there are also many other species. All of them are treasured by the local people, who are quite proud they come here every year. There are still almost a thousand of them here now. They are likely to be gone by the end of the month, but be careful when you’re flying. We don’t want to harm these exquisite creatures, these symbols of our country.”

  And then his voice changed and his whole demeanor shifted. He didn’t seem to be focused on us anymore or even aware of what he was saying. “Yu no hara ni / naku ashitazu wa / a ga gotoku / imo ni koure ya / toki wakazu naku. Near these hot springs / cranes are crying in a field / and I wonder if like myself / they long for love / and weep unmindful of time.”

  He changed again and was back with us. “Time,” he said. “Cadets, time is passing and is calling you to come along with it. We start flight training tomorrow. Be ready.” His official demeanor couldn’t hide his sincerity, his passion, or his kind nature; he reminded me of Yamamura-sensei.

  We spent the afternoon learning our way around the base. After a good meal that evening, we were sorting ourselves and our belongings in the barracks, before getting ready for bed, when talk turned from the promised thrill of learning to fly to Lieutenant Takeuchi’s odd speech.

  “What,” said Saito, a country boy from Yamaguchi, “was that talk about the cranes? Did I really hear him say something about cranes crying and then something about crying himself for love? I couldn’t understand that old literary language. What the heck is going on with the Lieutenant?”