Hiroshima Read Online Free PDF

at stake.
    Soon after Uncle Y. set sail, Mom grieved. “Y. died in battle. I felt closest of all to him.” She greatly mourned his death. When told that Uncle Y., handsome man, had died, I was stunned. But days later, I remember going to see Uncle Y. at Kure Naval Base accompanying Mom, who was ecstatic—“He survived!”
    According to what Mom heard from Uncle Y., the submarine on which Uncle Y. embarked got almost as far as Pearl Harbor, rammed its bow into the mud of the seafloor, got stuck, and couldn’t take part in the attack. The air inside the sub turned humid and suffocating, and with their whole bodies drenched in sweat, the crew tried desperately to free themselves. But the bow wouldn’t come free, and they all figured they were dead. Uncle Y. was chief engineer, so his responsibility was especially grave. Fortunately, as he was trying desperately to escape by backing the sub out, the bow pulled loose from the mud of the ocean floor, floated free, and the crew tried to take part in the attack. But the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor was already over.
    After the war Uncle Y. visited us in our hut, and he often said to us brothers, “Your father was a great man!” I hadn’t had the faintest idea why he was great. It was from Uncle Y. that I first learned of Dad’s thinking.
    Uncle Y. said, “I was the model gung-ho militarist young man.” He was a believer, without the slightest doubt: “I would have died happily for the country, for the emperor; Japan was the eternal land of the gods; it was only natural for a ‘son of Yamato’ to offer up his life to that land of the gods.” Forcing a smile, he said he was the model male conforming to the mold of patriotic education. With a flourish, this Uncle Y. said to Dad, “I’m off now to take part in the Pearl Harbor attack. I’ll die a splendid death for the country, for the emperor.” Dad glared at Y. and said angrily, “Down with the emperor system! This war is wrong. Japan will surely lose! Don’t die a dog’s death!” Dad went on and on, arguing about how terrible the emperor system was, speaking earnestly about its structure, and arguing about the process whereby the Japanese people, bound hand and foot in the coils of emperor-system fascism, were plunging into war.
    When Uncle Y., a firm believer in militarism, heard, “down with the emperor,” whom he had thought a god, he thought his head would explode. Stunned, he left for Pearl Harbor. Against all odds, he survived, and with Dad’s words always in mind, he avoided exposing himself to danger. When, under fire-bombing by B-29s and strafing by Grumman fighter planes, he was running about at Kure Naval Base, he thought to himself, it’s happened just as Dad said it would, and he understood just how prescient Dad had been.
    But I found it hard to talk with Uncle Y. He had lived a long time amid the din of submarine engines, so he spoke in a very loud voice, and it was tough for me, listening—I felt I was always being yelled at.
    I figured Dad had given that advice only to Uncle Y., but I learned years later from a visit by S., one of the young men who were in and out of our house, that Dad gave them the same advice.
    S.’s call-up notice came, and his dispatch to “Manchuria” (now northeastern China) was set. He came to take his leave, and Dad told him, “Down with the emperor system! Japan will surely lose this war, so don’t throw your life away!” and Dad made him listen in detail about the process leading from the structure of emperor-system fascism to defeat. S., a militaristic young man, turned white with shock. But when he got to Manchuria and saw Japan’s situation, it was as Dad said. He realized that Japan’s home islands would be beaten hollow, and he sent frantic letters to his family living in the center of Hiroshima. There was censorship in the service, so he