Chapter 173 - Name and Reality 96 {124 Alone} (297–298: The Upbringing of Kuwano Kinya and Onodera Michitoshi 4 / Naval Mine Accident)
Needless to say, considering the tragedy that followed, the situation at that time can only be seen as a great irony.
"On that day, local fire brigades (T/N: Author's Note: accurately, the Civil Defense Corps) helping out, and even residents of the surrounding areas who were specifically notified and called by the Engaru Police Station, flocked there, and it was apparently a huge commotion like a festival."
Yoshimura asked, timing it as if gauging Ooshima's state.
"Yeah... It's a completely ridiculous story, but whereas today people would be cleared away, they actually actively gathered people, so the sacrifices became that much greater... All of us, including the police and the fire brigade, were amateurs, and we cannot escape the accusation of recklessness."
His voice didn't quite reach a shout, but Ooshima's voice, tinged with anger, gave Nishida and Yoshimura a sufficient premonition of the never-to-be-forgotten misery that would be told next.
"I heard that before noon, in order to blast one mine after moving it away so as not to cause the other mine to sympathetic detonate, they pulled a rope to move it, and it suddenly exploded then. Was it that you happened not to be at the scene at that moment, Onodera-san?"
"It's exactly as Nishida-san said. Actually, by Taketomi-san's instruction, from the place where the four of us had put our luggage together, I... my memory of this part is a bit fuzzy because of the subsequent shock... but I think I was told to go get some tools and left the side of the mine. I must have been more than 100 meters away... And it must have been the moment I was about to return to my post. Suddenly, with a roar, a pillar of fire and a cloud of sand rose, and I was lightly blown away in an instant, and I have a memory of lying on the sandy beach. However, without clearly knowing what had happened, the next moment I slowly got up, a terrifying sight was before my eyes..."
Having said that, Ooshima lost his words, narrowing his eyes as if straining. To be precise, rather than losing them, he might have fallen silent to organize his thoughts.
He remained silent for about 20 seconds.
"It seemed a mine had exploded, and as I saw a large hole open in the beach, I could confirm moans, screams, and... parts of bodies that probably belonged to humans... No, I didn't know what they were at that moment, but something... was scattered around. Of course, I ran over in a daze to look for the three who had been by the mine, but as I got closer, seeing the beach stained red with blood, the smell of explosives, and people increasingly ceasing to be in human form, the blood drained from my face... However, as I looked around thinking only of what had happened to my comrades, especially Kinya-chan..."
Ooshima lost his words again, but this time, rather than being intentional, he seemed to have truly become speechless, his lips appearing to tremble slightly.
"...What looked like part of an upper arm... I didn't see it clearly as such at that point, but there was a lump of flesh that entered my field of vision. And, as if clinging to that lump, I saw the sleeve part of the hanten (T/N: Author's Note: for those who don't know well about hanten, please refer to https://matome.naver.jp/odai/2139128687392810601) that Kinya-chan often wore during work... Seeing that, I had no choice but to be certain that his survival was hopeless... That part of the hanten, torn off along with the section from the shoulder to the upper arm, is the piece of cloth you showed me the other day, which you received from Koshiba-san..."
Ooshima's story was basically expected, but it was the first time they had heard that it was a scrap of the Kuwano family's fisherman's hanten.
"How did you know immediately?"
Yoshimura questioned at once.
"The pattern on that piece of cloth was a shape with many small triangles left white, right? That's apparently the hanten of the Kuwano family, who were head fishermen, and it signifies fish scales. That was decorated all the way from the shoulder to around the elbow of the sleeve. So, to be precise, it was closer to the truth to say that by seeing part of that hanten, I knew whose it was and which part of the body it was... That hanten, as I said earlier, was the only proof of the Kuwano family's existence, a memento that Kinya-chan found at the site of his family home washed away by the tsunami. He apparently wore that hanten for work that required him to psych himself up. And then, part of that hanten became his own memento in turn..."
He recounted.
That a part of the dismembered body could be immediately confirmed as belonging to Kuwano Kinya was, ironically, due to the hanten that was a memento of the Kuwano family for Kuwano Kinya himself; it was an indescribable conclusion.
"...I see. I thought it was probably a memento of Kuwano-san, but it was originally the Kuwano family's hanten."
Nishida also lost his next words after saying that, but Ooshima resumed the story as if pulling himself together.
"However, as I was driven to the depths of despair while holding that lump of flesh, it suddenly felt as if that lump of flesh began to whisper to me. 'Don't miss this chance.'"
"...That means, to take advantage of that confusion and live as Kuwano Kinya, right?"
To Nishida, who managed to react to that statement,
"Umu,"
Ooshima replied simply.
"And the merit of impersonating Kuwano Kinya was that you could avoid being called up as a soldier, using Kuwano-san's finger disability as the reason, right?"
When Yoshimura added further,
"Ho! If you've read that far, there's nothing I can do,"
He said with a wry smile, then continued,
"At this point, it might sound very much like an excuse, but there's a proper reason why I felt that Kinya-chan's 'fragment' conveyed that to me, rather than me thinking of it myself."
"What do you mean by that?"
Nishida, needless to say, followed the flow of the conversation.
"I started working with Kinya-chan at Konomai in the spring of Showa 17 (1942), the year after the Pearl Harbor attack at the end of Showa 16 (1941), as I said earlier. And we were both living in the miners' dormitory at Konomai, but one day when I was in his room, we happened to talk about whether Japan could win the Greater East Asia War or the war against the US from then on. As you can tell from the story so far, I wasn't a particularly patriotic person at the time, but even so, I didn't stop wishing for Japan's victory, or rather, I believed in it... In other words, as an ordinary Japanese citizen of the time, I held a common position, whereas Kinya-chan, who was completely a leftist, was naturally critical of Japan's imperialist way of being, so we had a light argument. In response to Kinya-chan's stance, I uncharacteristically berated him using the word hikokumin (T/N: 'unpatriotic person' or 'traitor')... you've probably heard that word before."
"Hikokumin... It seems like a word from the distant past, but there are still people who have actually used it..."
Yoshimura stated his impression as if it were someone else's business, even while facing the person himself. As a matter of fact, although there was no "temporal parallelism" (T/N: Author's Note: This is my own coined phrase, meaning something like "in real time") in the use of that word with Nishida and Yoshimura, there should be a "contemporaneity" in that they coexist with people who have actually used it, rather than it being just a historical word. But even with that premise, it was obviously a word that was hard to truly grasp.
"To you boys, it seems like a long time ago, but in my own sense, it's not that old a story. The last few decades of one's life pass in an instant... You should understand that well. ...Well, putting that aside, to continue the story, Kinya-chan, who was usually mild-mannered, uncharacteristically flared up and argued back against that remark. On my part, I probably thought he would give an ethical anti-war argument, but that wasn't it."
"That wasn't it?"
To Nishida's prompt,
"Exactly. He argued back more realistically and logically,"
He answered. And,
"That man was certainly a leftist in terms of emotional and ethical parts, but on the other hand, he also possessed a realist side based on intelligence. That's why he properly grasped what kind of situation Japan was in at the time... In other words, he had great doubts about how Japan, in the terms of the time, would maintain the country after becoming hostile to the West except for Germany and Italy (T/N: Author's Note: To be precise, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia, etc., also joined the Tripartite Pact, so this expression is not strictly correct) due to the China Incident, the stationing in French Indochina (corresponding to what is now Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), and the outbreak of war with the US after Pearl Harbor. He believed that since money and materials are needed to wage war, if the economy is exhausted, you can't fight with just spiritualism. In response, I said, 'Do we not have Manchuria, our lifeline?' but he stubbornly refused to yield, saying that Manchuria couldn't generate enough profit to cover trade with the West. Furthermore, he said this: 'Given the current arrogant national sentiment that approves of the expansion of the front on the continent and goes wild over the withdrawal from the League of Nations, and the runaway of the military further accelerated by that, Japan will likely be unable to stop the fight until it suffers considerable damage. If that happens, many young men will be sent to the front as soldiers, and a considerable number will likely lose their lives. I won't be called up because of this finger injury, as if it were a blessing in disguise, but you, Micchan, are likely to be called up. At that time, it would be good if you could return alive, but that's not necessarily the case. Rather, one could even say the possibility is low. Are you prepared for that?' At this time, I was pressed with a terrifying intensity I had never seen before..."
Ooshima closed his eyes here and interrupted the conversation. Nishida and the others, who were just listening, couldn't clearly infer the meaning of that, but it must have been a considerable intensity, different from the usual Kuwano.
After shaking his shoulders lightly two or three times, he resumed the story.
"Of course, he must have had his own political claims originally, but he probably thought it was a reckless war to the point where there was no need to bring them out. Even if he had never been abroad, there's no doubt he had abundant knowledge of overseas affairs through books, and he must have understood the actual situation in Japan. Anyway, because Kinya-chan denied it with a mere enumeration of facts, I thought, 'This might turn out worse than I thought,' and since then, I internally began to quite realistically perceive the defeat and my own death, and at the same time, I came to be prepared for it. ...Well, in reality, it wasn't such a cool, fierce debate like this; we both had strong, rustic Iwate accents..."
He laughed a little at the end, but immediately returned to a serious face.
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As already briefly mentioned, the Japanese economy in the 1930s had raw silk export as its main industry. It depended on the US for over 95% of raw silk exports, and with the foreign currency obtained, it imported 50% of cotton, 55% of oil (products), 30% of steel, and 30% of machinery from the US (all ratios to the total import amount).
Furthermore, to Britain, it exported clothing and cotton yarn processed from imported cotton, and from Britain, it imported 14% of steel and 28% of machinery. From India, which was a British territory, it imported 40% of cotton and 20% of rubber, so both exports and imports were very highly dependent on the West.
With the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo, the Japan-Manchuria economic bloc system (after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the Japan-Manchuria-China economic bloc) was established, but it could never become an economic foundation that could stand without the West.
◯ Import/Export Structure
Japan (Raw Silk) → USA (Cotton) → Japan (Cotton Products) → Britain
USA, Britain (Strategic Materials) → Japan
Trade Amount in 1935
Exports: 2,499,000,000 yen
China (including Manchuria): 575,103,000 yen
USA: 535,515,000 yen
British India: 275,637,000 yen
Indonesia: 143,041,000 yen
Britain: 119,458,000 yen
Imports: 2,472,000,000 yen
USA: 809,645,000 yen
British India: 305,645,000 yen
China: 350,338,000 yen
Australia: 235,128,000 yen
Germany: 120,817,000 yen
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"Does that mean because that conversation left a very strong impression on you, the idea of impersonating Kuwano-san came out instantaneously and spontaneously?"
When asked by Nishida,
"Exactly so, my boy! Kinya-chan's prophecy that Japan would lose the war and many young men who became soldiers would die was something I only heard that one time, but for me, it became a terribly heavy prophecy and was deeply engraved in my heart. Since that brilliant Kinya-chan said that much, I couldn't help but think it had a certain amount of truth and reality. And as he was blown to pieces before my eyes, while I was dazed, for some reason that memory suddenly came back vividly. It was as if Kinya-chan was talking to me... no, as if he was encouraging me... 'Micchan, what are you hesitating for! There's no way you shouldn't use this opportunity now! Take my place and run! And survive!'..."
He reproduced the past with such power that it didn't seem like something from a long time ago. At this point, the intention to push the blame for his own escape onto Kuwano Kinya was not felt in the slightest by Nishida and Yoshimura, who were in front of him.