At a class meeting of Tokyo High School under the old system held yesterday, Mr. Hiroshi Tsuruta told about an essay in the latest issue of Bungeishunjyu, a monthly magazine. It carries paragraphs about the death of Mr. Toshio Mizui, our classmate. He made a suicide attack against the enemy transport ships, by riding on a "Kaiten," a human torpedo, on August 10th, 1945. So I went down to the Toranomon Shobo near JR Tamachi station and bought a copy of it. When I opened it, I found an essay written by Mr. Hiroyuki Agawa titled as "cannibal sharks and a war-end episode" In the last part of his essay, there were a few paragraphs about Mr. Mizui. He was drafted into Japanese Navy from a university student and at the time of attack he was an Ensign. He was assigned to the "I-58" submarine of Japanese navy as a "Kaiten" special attack force member. The submarine attacked and sank the USS Indianapolis with conventional torpedoes on July 30, 1945. She transported the atomic bomb to Tinian island in South Pacific. On its way back, the submarine met the enemy transport ships off Philippines and Mr. Mizui was ordered to make a suicide attack against them and he was killed. I could not understand why he had to kill himself only five days before the surrender of Japan.
Mr. Agawa wrote in the last part of his essay as follows: hMs. Yukiko (her present last name is Yoshimura,) his sister, is now over seventies. Even now she often has dreams that her brother wearing a black cloak of old Tokyo High School students was going far away beyond waves. Whenever I cried 'My brother, do not go!' in dreams, I waked up." If they could wait for five days more, the war ended. At such a crucial moment, I cannot understand why he had to go. If the captain of submarine, Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, is alive, I would like to ask him. But he died a natural death of his 91 years old age in October, 2000 in Kyoto, his home town. (excerpt from 78th page of Bungeishunjyu's October, 2002 issue. Editor is responsible for translation from Japanese into English.)
As my doubts about his death have been related the honor of the captain, I could not tell anybody other than him (I did not know who the captain was until I read Mr. Agawa's essay today. ) So that I had to keep silent about it. After I read his short essay, I acknowledged that Mr. Agawa, one of the most reliable non-fiction writers ( I think I read almost all of his works,) has also doubts about the incident. So I pick up one question hereafter. The captain who ordered the attack might have some information that Japan would surrender soon. To collect enemy information is an important duty of captain. He has not only to know the results of torpedo attacks against enemy ships but he also has to try to get information about the whole war situation. Especially as submarine moves alone in ocean, it is very important for him. So it seems to be natural that he has felt the war was ending. If so, I could not understand why he ordered such an attack. (Continue to Tomorrow Page.)