* Recently the traffic inside the Tokyo Metropolis has become heavily congested just the same as at the time of bubble. The prolongation of waiting time at red signal seemed to be one of the causes. As a theme of Safety Traffic Movement, the Metropolitan Police might start the experiment to decrease the accident ratio by prolonging the waiting time at the red signal, I imagined. These days the traffic on road from the top of Isarago slope to the bottom of Gyoran slope has become heavy due to the traffic control signal at Gyoran cross. Not a few pedestrians began to cross the road at the middle of slope, by threading their way through a long vehicle line. Because they know the waiting line of vehicles does not move soon. Meanwhile, the traffic on the National Highway No.1 which crossed the slope at the Gyoran intersection is rather smooth. But some of pedestrians are not patient enough to wait their turn to cross as the red signal is too long. To stop the stream of vehicles causes minus effects on activation rate (or productivity) of economy which needs the renovation urgently. I hope not only Police but Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, local governments and also scholars should be mobilised to develop the intelligent traffic control system which minimises the stop time while protecting the safety of pedestrians.
* At a book shelf at my home, I discovered a book titled as "The Imperial Japanese Navy's Way of Strategy"written by Mr. Masataka Chihaya (Chuou-Bunko, published on July 18, 1995, ISBN4-12-202372-6) which I have not read yet, He was graduated from Naval Academy in 1930 (58th graduate). He was a Navy Commander and a staff officer of the Combined Fleet of Imperial Japanese Navy at the end of war. As he wrote many books and articles about the war history of Japanese navy, the most of you may know him well, I suppose. He started to write the drafts of this book in 1946 right after the end of war and completed it in 1947. He wrote frankly about the actual state of Japanese Navy and also the causes why it was defeated almost completely by the U. S. Navy. I believed that Japanese navy is a group made of excellent brains chosen from gifted youths all over Japan but I found I was wrong. Surprisingly, I discovered in his book that they were not a group of intellectual persons. They never respect intelligence and information. They never made efforts to get intelligence reports. They were a group of good fighting men.
The author could not imagine a special bomb dropped on Hiroshima was an atomic bomb, because he had known nothing about the bomb. He confessed honestly that he, an operation staff who prepared the defence of Japan mainland at the Naval Headquarter, had no information about the atomic bomb. Doctor Yoshio Nishina had started the study of atomic bomb in Japan. But it was rumoured in Tokyo that he reported at the diet that it was almost impossible to develop it with Japanese poor scientific capability and their industrial power.
I was mobilised to work at the Kure Naval yard from February,1945. I was a university student as well as a Naval Engineering cadet. I experienced the blitz and shock wave of the explosion and observed the mushroom clouds. When the military announced that a special bomb was dropped on a city of Hiroshima, I gathered the veteran job leaders and told them it must be an atomic bomb which has a superior power compared with conventional bombs. We should take shelter even when only an enemy bomber ( shelters in Kure Naval Yard were strongly built under hills.) was coming. It was quite a surprise for me that an operation staff of the combined fleet of Imperial Japanese Navy had not the slightest idea about the atomic bomb, which a university student like me had. The navy neglected intelligence reports about their enemy. The defeat of Imperial Japanese Navy resulted mainly from the luck of intelligence report. As they never respect the intelligence, they never tried to get it. Furthermore they never acknowledged that the navy code was deciphered by the allied forces. If your read this book, you will find the author himself did not realise it months after the end of war.