what they have just witnessed is only a prelude to the horrors the United States Navy will have to endure over the next ten months.
*****
Holly Crawforth was one of the 775 St. Lo crewmen rescued by Taffy 3’s remaining destroyers and destroyer escorts. Fifty-nine years after that terrible day, I ask him to recall his feelings at the time toward the men who almost killed him: “I think there was some hatred of the Japanese,” he writes, “but with time, most of us felt there was a job to do and we wanted to get it finished and go home…After we were sunk (and rescued)…I think we were so happy to be alive, we didn’t think of hating anybody.”
“The Kamikaze tactics were obviously a desperation move,” he continues. “But, we always felt that if the invasion of Japan had occurred, the Kamikazes would have done terrible damage, as demonstrated at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Even though many of my friends and shipmates were killed by the action of Yukio Seki (commander of the kamikaze flight that attacked Taffy 3 - author), I feel that he was doing what his country asked him to do – right or wrong. I also feel that the war was a terrible waste of human lives and resources. I’m proud of my part in it and think, given the same set of circumstances, I would do it again.” [6]
Reading the thoughts and sentiments of a man who experienced the receiving end of a kamikaze attack prompts questions about the nature of the men on the other side – the ones who flew the planes Holly Crawforth and his comrades faced. What kind of society, education, and culture could have sanctioned such tactics and produced the fighting men needed to carry them out? Was their conduct due to a uniquely Japanese context, or are there identifiable universals that can shed light on our modern day era, when the hijacked airliner is the deadliest non-nuclear guided missile ever devised? When the suicide bomber is the preferred weapon of resistance throughout much of the developing world?
My search for answers to these questions began in January 2002. I thought it only appropriate that my first step be taken at the spiritual center of the kamikaze legacy – the great Shinto shrine of Yasukuni in downtown Tokyo.
2 Yasukuni
I n winter, air masses from Siberia sit over Tokyo, pushing out the cloud cover and humidity that make the megalopolis feel like a giant armpit the rest of the year. Brisk westerly winds smelling of dry foliage and faraway soil keep a crisp snap in the breeze, pumping in frigid air faster than car exhausts and BTU-hemorrhaging buildings can heat it up, blowing the normally lethal smog away before it can stain the sunny blue skies. Native residents, with their higher tolerance for heat and muggy air, usually complain about the cold temperatures and short daylight hours of this season, but for most anyone else born and raised in a temperate zone, this is a one of the few times of the year when the weather here can be called pleasant.
One weekday afternoon in January 2002, I am enjoying some of this rare vintage “champagne weather” as I walk the tree-lined, flagstone-paved promenade of Yasukuni, the sanctum sanctorum of extinct Japanese martial machismo. Modern Shinto tradition holds that the souls of some 2.5 million Japan ese servicemen who died in the service of Meiji, his son Emperor Taishō and grandson Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) lay in peaceful repose here. A variation of this traditional belief popular with old veterans is that the spirits of these fallen soldiers, sailors and airmen gather in this placid Valhalla to mingle amidst the branches of the carefully pruned cherry arbors, drinking heavenly saké poured by nubile tennyo angels in flowing silk robes, reunited with their old comrades in wholesome masculine companionship for eternity.
Less romantic interpretations of Yasukuni’s raison d’etre – especially prevalent in Asian countries victimized by Japan in the Second World War – tend to see the
*****
Holly Crawforth was one of the 775 St. Lo crewmen rescued by Taffy 3’s remaining destroyers and destroyer escorts. Fifty-nine years after that terrible day, I ask him to recall his feelings at the time toward the men who almost killed him: “I think there was some hatred of the Japanese,” he writes, “but with time, most of us felt there was a job to do and we wanted to get it finished and go home…After we were sunk (and rescued)…I think we were so happy to be alive, we didn’t think of hating anybody.”
“The Kamikaze tactics were obviously a desperation move,” he continues. “But, we always felt that if the invasion of Japan had occurred, the Kamikazes would have done terrible damage, as demonstrated at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Even though many of my friends and shipmates were killed by the action of Yukio Seki (commander of the kamikaze flight that attacked Taffy 3 - author), I feel that he was doing what his country asked him to do – right or wrong. I also feel that the war was a terrible waste of human lives and resources. I’m proud of my part in it and think, given the same set of circumstances, I would do it again.” [6]
Reading the thoughts and sentiments of a man who experienced the receiving end of a kamikaze attack prompts questions about the nature of the men on the other side – the ones who flew the planes Holly Crawforth and his comrades faced. What kind of society, education, and culture could have sanctioned such tactics and produced the fighting men needed to carry them out? Was their conduct due to a uniquely Japanese context, or are there identifiable universals that can shed light on our modern day era, when the hijacked airliner is the deadliest non-nuclear guided missile ever devised? When the suicide bomber is the preferred weapon of resistance throughout much of the developing world?
My search for answers to these questions began in January 2002. I thought it only appropriate that my first step be taken at the spiritual center of the kamikaze legacy – the great Shinto shrine of Yasukuni in downtown Tokyo.
2 Yasukuni
I n winter, air masses from Siberia sit over Tokyo, pushing out the cloud cover and humidity that make the megalopolis feel like a giant armpit the rest of the year. Brisk westerly winds smelling of dry foliage and faraway soil keep a crisp snap in the breeze, pumping in frigid air faster than car exhausts and BTU-hemorrhaging buildings can heat it up, blowing the normally lethal smog away before it can stain the sunny blue skies. Native residents, with their higher tolerance for heat and muggy air, usually complain about the cold temperatures and short daylight hours of this season, but for most anyone else born and raised in a temperate zone, this is a one of the few times of the year when the weather here can be called pleasant.
One weekday afternoon in January 2002, I am enjoying some of this rare vintage “champagne weather” as I walk the tree-lined, flagstone-paved promenade of Yasukuni, the sanctum sanctorum of extinct Japanese martial machismo. Modern Shinto tradition holds that the souls of some 2.5 million Japan ese servicemen who died in the service of Meiji, his son Emperor Taishō and grandson Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) lay in peaceful repose here. A variation of this traditional belief popular with old veterans is that the spirits of these fallen soldiers, sailors and airmen gather in this placid Valhalla to mingle amidst the branches of the carefully pruned cherry arbors, drinking heavenly saké poured by nubile tennyo angels in flowing silk robes, reunited with their old comrades in wholesome masculine companionship for eternity.
Less romantic interpretations of Yasukuni’s raison d’etre – especially prevalent in Asian countries victimized by Japan in the Second World War – tend to see the
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