THE BLACKENED CANTEEN Pulled from the wreckage of a B-29 in Japan, a battered canteen has become a symbol of healing. BY DENNIS HOLLIER ON DECEMBER 6, THE DAY BEFORE the official commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, a different kind of ceremony will take place at the USS Arizona Memorial. It will likely be one of those sparkling, clear Hawaiian mornings, not so different from that fateful winter day in 1941. As many as 150 people will gather in the shade of the memorial to listen to a series of speeches about world peace and friendship between former enemies. Military brass will attend, as will representatives from the Japanese Consulate and even a few nonagenarian aviators. But the keynote speaker will be an elderly Japanese doctor named Hiroya Sugano, who will deliver his brief, poignant remarks in halting English. At the end of the ceremony, Sugano will step to the rail, twist the cap off a battered, blackened canteen, and, joined by World War II veterans, pour a couple of pints of good Kentucky bourbon into the glittering harbor. It will be a modest ceremony, much simpler than the rituals of the following day. Even so, some of the veterans in the audience will be moved to tears. To understand why, we have look back to events that happened 70 years earlier, in the last weeks of what the older veterans still call simply The War. ON JUNE 19, 1945, 137 B-29s from the 314th Bombardment Wing of the U.S. Army Air Forces thundered off the runway in Guam, headed for the coast of Japan. Their target was the port of Shizuoka, a modest city about halfway between Tokyo and Osaka. Up to that point in the war, Shizuoka had faced only sporadic bombing; this time would be different. Shortly after midnight on June 20, 13,217 incendiary bombs rained down on the sleeping city. Shizuoka, like most Japanese cities of the time, was dominated by homes made largely of wood and paper, so the conflagration destroyed the center of the city in a matter of minutes. Nearly 2,000 civilians died that night; 20,000 more were injured. The Americans also suffered a catastrophe. During the air raid, two of the B-29s collided over Shizuoka, crashing to the ground on a farm along the banks of the Abe river. All 23 airmen died. STAFF SGT. CHRISTOPHER HUBENTHAL/USAF 6 AIR & SPACE airspacemag.com
PACIFIC AVIATION MUSEUM SUGANO WAS 12 YEARS OLD the night of the Shizuoka air raid. Speaking over the phone, with Ryoji Koike, a Japanese interpreter at the Pacific Aviation Museum, acting as translator, he describes the experience. I was still in the sixth grade, but I remember that night very clearly because it was so terrible. Sugano says he and his family were in a bomb shelter by the river when the two B-29s collided. I remember someone screaming, Something is falling down from the sky! There was this mid-air collision, and we all heard something crash into the ground with a big boom. I was very scared. The crash was only about 100 meters from the shelter, so it was very loud. In the morning, the survivors emerged to survey the ruined city and investigate the bomber wreckage. Young Sugano rushed to the crash site. Like many Japanese boys at the time, he loved airplanes, and his heroes were Zero fighter pilots. The carnage in the fields affected him deeply. It was probably five or six hours after the collision, he says, but the aircraft were still on fire. I remember the smell from the fuel. We tried to get as At the USS Arizona Memorial in December 2015, Japanese physician Hiroya Sugano, assisted by World War II veterans, pours bourbon from a canteen (opposite) pulled from the wreckage of two B-29s. close as possible, but the soldiers had the area secured. Still, I saw at least three of the airmen burned on the ground. You know, the Japanese were pretty small at that time, so my first impression, as a 12-year-old, was, How come these Americans are so huge? I clearly remember thinking two things. The first was: What kind of food were they eating, because they were big, muscled guys. In Japan, at the end of the war, there was almost no food. I remember having nothing to eat but leaves sometimes, so I was kind of jealous of the Americans. The second thing I remember thinking was about my grandfather. He was a military doctor during the second Russo-Japanese War. Japan won that war, but my grandfather took care of the wounded soldiers on the Russian side, not just the Japanese. My grandfather told me, When the enemy is wounded or loses PEARL HARBOR 75 COLLECTOR S EDITION AIR & SPACE 7
From November 1944 until war s end, B-29s by the hundreds took off from the Marianas to strike Japanese targets. In March 1945, the Superfortresses began firebombing and burned whole cities to the ground. his life, he s no longer the enemy, he s just a man. Hiroya Sugano wasn t the only one thinking this way. One of the first civilians on the scene that morning was Fukumatsu Itoh, 53, a Shizuoka city councilman. His elder brother owned the farm where the aircraft had crashed, so he was there to see the volunteers collect the bodies and lay them out by the river. He was also there for the mass cremations, of the Japanese and the American dead. According to Sugano, even though Itoh was Buddhist, he offered to take the cremated remains of the Americans and give them a proper Christian burial. The other civilians were very angry with him, Sugano says. But Mr. Itoh said, Even enemy soldiers, when they lose their lives, their spirits become the same as anyone else. So he made a wooden cross for them and started to pray. Later I can t remember if it was two or three days after the crash Mr. Itoh found the American canteen among the debris at the crash site. It was black and distorted from the fire and appeared to have the imprint of someone s hand melted into its surface. But Mr. Itoh kept it. In the angry aftermath of the bombing, Mr. Itoh s respect for the Americans was deeply unpopular among the citizens of Shizuoka, and after he buried their remains, he was taken to jail. He might have remained there had the war not ended a few weeks later. On August 15, 1945, when Japan surrendered, all the prisoners were released. Now it was time to rebuild the ruined country and create a new national idea for the Japanese people. Itoh had an idea what that future should look like. After the war ended, Sugano says, Mr. Itoh kept the wooden cross on his elder brother s farm. Every year, on June 20, Mr. Itoh would hold a private ceremony for both the Japanese civilians who died and for the B-29 airmen. Sometimes he prayed alone; sometimes a few people would come to pray with him. After saying his prayers, Mr. Itoh would pour a little whiskey from the blackened canteen onto the cross. YEARS AFTER THE WAR, YOUNG SUGANO left Shizuoka for medical school. He wanted to become a doctor, like his grandfather. He also indulged his love of airplanes by joining an auxiliary group of the official Zero pilots association. His membership allowed him to meet some of his old aviation heroes, including the vice president of the association, renowned ace Saburo Sakai, whose autobiography, Samurai!, co-written with American author Martin Caidin, had been published in the United States. Through Sakai and some of the other Zero pilots, he also got to know NARA 8 AIR & SPACE airspacemag.com
RIGHT: COURTESY JOE CHOVELAK AND RICHARD KELSO VIA 39TH BOMB GROUP (VH) several American aviators who had fought in World War II. These contacts would become useful later. In 1971, Sugano, then 38, returned to Shizuoka to open a medical practice. One day the young doctor was hiking on Shizuhata when he came upon a pair of memorials: one for the 2,000 Japanese who died in the attack he experienced as a boy and one for the 23 dead American airmen he had seen in the smoldering wreckage. Immediately he tried to learn more about these markers. Someone told him about Itoh now a Buddhist monk and his unusual ceremony. The next day Sugano went to introduce himself to the old man. Mr. Itoh was able to acquire land on Shizuhata Mountain, a hill in the middle of Shizuoka city. It took nearly 20 years, but he did it all with his personal money. In today s money, [the land] would cost almost a million dollars, Sugano says. Even after Itoh built the memorials on Shizuhata, his ceremony remained a quiet, local affair. When Sugano and the old monk met, it was clear they shared many of the same views, and almost immediately Sugano volunteered to help with the ceremony. But the young doctor was ambitious. In addition to honoring the dead, he saw the Blackened Canteen ceremony as a chance to help continue the new friendship between the United States and Japan. He wanted the commemoration to become more international. So, I asked Mr. Itoh if we could have a more official ceremony, Sugano says. That s when Mr. Itoh agreed to invite people from the U.S. Air Force. In 1972, the ceremony was attended by 160 Americans from Yokota Air Base, including the wing commander Two huge buses of people, says Sugano. That first year, the main representative from Japan was still Itoh-san, he says. Some of the Japanese Zero pilots also participated, including Saburo Sakai. I was just a supporter. It started with an informal gathering the night before so several participants could meet one another and develop personal relationships. The next day, on the mountain, Itoh would loosen the cap of the blackened canteen and pour a little Kentucky bourbon on the memorials. There would be speeches and warm feelings and the occasional tear. This small ceremony had become a symbol of a growing friendship between two former enemies. It was a big success, Sugano says. Now the Shizuoka families understand this is a joint commemoration between the two countries. Nobody talks about the enemy anymore. EACH YEAR, THE CEREMONY CONTINUED to grow, and the friendship between young doctor and old monk grew with it. The two agreed that Sugano would take over the gathering. Now, every June, hundreds of people both American and Japanese converge on Shizuoka to hike up the mountain. And each year, people are surprised by how moving the experience can be. Former P-51 pilot and Iwo Jima veteran Jerry Yellin has attended many of the ceremonies. Like many veterans of the Pacific campaigns, Yellin had returned from the war with a deep hatred for the Japanese people. Then, Yellin says, In 1988, my youngest son, Robert, married a Japanese woman whose father had been a kamikaze pilot. Yellin began to visit Japan regularly and got to know the Japanese and experience their culture. His family connection made him a powerful advocate for better relations between his country and Japan. Yellin began traveling to promote world peace, and when Sugano saw him on a Japanese TV station, he invited Yellin to Shizuoka. Sugano s ceremony so moved him that Yellin wrote The Blackened Canteen, a fictionalized account of the bombing and the ceremony it gave birth to. The original memorial that Itoh made for the B-29 The crews of the two B-29s that collided during a night raid on Shizuoka. Left: Commanded by 1st Lieutenant Waldo Everdon (standing, second from left), the crew was part of the 29th Bomb Group, and had an observer on board. Right: Led by Captain Donald Hopkins (front row, center), the crew was with the 39th. PEARL HARBOR 75 COLLECTOR S EDITION AIR & SPACE 9
crew members was a mass grave; he didn t know the names of the Americans who died. Yellin decided that the airmen should have a marker, even though, a few years earlier, the U.S. Army had disentombed the remains of all the Americans in Shizuoka and reburied them in a ceremony at the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery, a Veterans Administration site in Louisville, Kentucky. For many families, though, the quiet memorial on Shizuhata Mountain would always be the final resting spot for the 23 airmen. Yellin approached a friend, Jim Belilove. He had a company that made monuments and tombstones, so I asked him, How much would it cost me to have a memorial made for 23 Americans who were killed in World War II? He said. I ll make it for free. We went to the ceremony in 2008 to dedicate the memorial. Yellin and his book have also played a role in making the Shizuoka ceremony known to Americans and in bringing family members of the airmen who died to the memorial. After receiving a phone call from Yellin in 2006, George O Connor, a New York fireman whose uncle Jack O Connor was one of the airmen killed in the crash, made it to the dedication ceremony in 2008. He was actually looking for my dad to invite him to the ceremony, says O Connor. O Connor went in his dad s place. I never met him, of course, but from the time I can remember, there was always a reverence in my house for Jack. He was my dad s older brother. My dad was quite athletic growing up. He was the star at every sport. He was a New York fireman. He was the hero in my life. To hear him talk about his brother as being this super ballplayer who was better than him at everything, I just couldn t imagine. He was always telling me how his brother could make him look silly at anything. So the family took his death quite hard, especially my mother. Sugano usually presents important guests with gifts of friendship. My wife and I brought gifts too, O Connor says. Because he was so inspirational, we felt compelled to give Dr. Sugano something truly meaningful. With the blessing of his brother, O Connor gave Sugano their father s fireman s badge. The following day, hundreds attended the ceremony. Admiral Ronald Hays (ret.), commander-in-chief, U.S. Pacific Command, from 1985 to 1988 and an active member of the Japan America Society, addressed the gathering, along with Colonel David Carey, the new commander from Yokota Air Base. In the audience were 20 former Japanese combat pilots. Hays was so moved by Sugano s story that he has spoken at several of the Shizuoka ceremonies. When his schedule prevented the admiral from attending, retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel Gary Meyers, an On June 19, 1945, 137 B-29s were dispatched from Guam to strike the city of Shizuoka. An aerial photograph NARA made in the days after the raid shows the consequences of 868 tons of incendiary bombs. 10 AIR & SPACE airspacemag.com
2ND LT. ASHLEY WRIGHT/USAF unofficial aide-de-camp to Hays, went in his stead and read his letter to the attendees. We owe it to the fallen to never forget their supreme sacrifices, Hays wrote. And we owe it to our young generations to unite as we do today to promote international peace. prayers and pouring a little Wild Turkey from the old blackened canteen into the water. When they met in 2008, Sugano told Admiral Hays about his dream to bring the ritual to Pearl Harbor. The admiral told me that if I performed the same ceremony at the Arizona Memorial, it would be an honor for both countries, Sugano says. After DeVirgilio introduced Sugano to Kathy Billings, then the superintendent of the Arizona Memorial, and Daniel Martinez, its chief historian, WHEN THE USS ARIZONA EXPLODED and sank on December 7, 1941, 1,107 crew members died, 950 of them entombed in the ship. On the 50th anniversary of the attack, in 1991, U.S. veterans had still not recovered from the day s losses, and, to counter proposals that Japanese dignitaries be included in the memorial ceremonies, the U.S. Department of State issued an unusual statement: We expect no official participation by foreign guests in the Pearl Harbor commemoration events. Two other events took place at Pearl Harbor that year one large, one small. Beginning on December 9 in downtown Honolulu, Japanese and American veterans talked about their war experiences at a symposium sponsored in part by the National Park Service. The symposium provided a neutral zone, says John DeVirgilio, a Hawaii science teacher and amateur historian who had become acquainted with the Japanese aviators through an oral history project. At the symposium, DeVirgilio introduced his next-door neighbor, Richard Fiske, who happened to be a U.S. Marine bugler on Two airmen one a U.S. serviceman from Yokota Air Base, the the USS West Virginia the day of the attack, other a member of the Japanese Ground Self Defense Force to Zenji Abe, one of the pilots who flew in participate in a prayer ceremony at the memorial in Shizuoka. the first wave. The two shook hands and became friends, and Fiske, accompanied by DeVirgilio, the admiral said the same thing to them. Finally, on began the quiet monthly practice of dropping two December 7, 2010, Sugano stood before a small crowd roses, one for each side, into the water around the of dignitaries to preside over the first official Blackened USS Arizona Memorial. Abe bought the roses, and Canteen Ceremony in Pearl Harbor. Every year, the Fiske played Taps American and Japanese until ceremony has grown. This year, the 75th anniversary, his death in 2004. so many are expected to attend and so much will be The small event in 1991 was Sugano s visit to the on the program that the ceremony will move to the memorial. On that day, he says, several Americans day before the official commemoration. asked me, Why would a Japanese guy come here? Sugano has been performing this ritual now for They were kind of angry with me, but I started to more than 40 years, nearly twice as long as Itoh. think Yes, you re victims, but we were victims also. Through the translator, I asked the doctor if these So I decided I wanted to try to do my commemoration ceremonies reminded him of the violent acts of 1945, somewhere at Pearl Harbor too. or of all the relationships he has forged over the years. It happened very slowly, says DeVirgilio, but Over the phone, I could hear him give a long, deep sigh. through the years, as he continued introducing vet After 1945, he said, I believe Japan started a new erans from both sides, the anger began to subside. culture. Now, 75 years after Japan started a terrible The fabric of history was like a protective Superman war, I would like to believe this ceremony has played cape, he says. a small part in building the good relationship between Every year since 1991, Sugano has gone to Pearl the U.S. and Japan. My hope is that this ceremony can Harbor for the December 7 commemoration, unob- be part of bringing peace to the whole world. I would trusively performing his private ceremony, saying like to be part of that story. PEARL HARBOR 75 COLLECTOR S EDITION AIR & SPACE 11