Yasuo kuwahara biography of abraham

Originally published inthis enduring classic—the first-ever English publication cowritten by a Japanese suicide pilot—remains a touching and insightful look into the world of the kamikaze. From the age of 15, Yasuo Kuwahara began a life of military service that included suffering through brutal basic training, participating in ferocious aerial combat against the Allies, and avoiding a suicide mission when an atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima, near his hometown.

From being handpicked for kamikaze service to finding the discipline to die for the emperor, this history presents a firsthand account of the fascinating life of a kamikaze fighter pilot. Previews available in: English. Add another edition? Copy and paste this code into your Wikipedia page. Need help? Kamikaze Yasuo Kuwahara, Yasuo Kuwahara. Borrow Listen.

Use this Work. Create a new list. Originally published inthis enduring classic—the first-ever English publication cowritten by a Japanese suicide pilot—remains a touching and insightful look into the world of the kamikaze. From the age of 15, Yasuo Kuwahara began a life of military service that included suffering through brutal basic training, participating in ferocious aerial combat against the Allies, and avoiding a suicide mission when an atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima, near his hometown.

Gradually a numbness settled and I began trying to visualize what had happened.

Yasuo kuwahara biography of abraham: Yasuo Kuwahara. Page 8. Contents

A big bomb. The Americans had dropped a new bomb. Was it the atom bomb? While flying I had received repeated radio warnings from the enemy in Saipan. They had told us to surrender, stating that the greatest power the earth had ever known was to soon be unleashed on Japan. How ironical the situation seemed! I could die where I was and no one would ever know exactly what had become of me.

A suicide pilot dying on the ground only minutes from home. Such an ignoble way to die! I almost laughed. Perhaps no one would ever dare approach Hiroshima. Maybe all of Japan was gone. What a thought—no more Japan! No, of course not, I was dreaming. Suddenly I gave a start. Dust had sifted through the hole and there were sounds. I yelled with all my strength.

No answer. I yelled again. As I waited, the thought came that perhaps I'd been there for days. Sounds increased—more voices. Finally the weight was lifting, darkness changing to light. What a weird, swirling vision—I fell. Arms caught my body and lowered it to the earth. No broken bones. You'll be all right. They were soldiers from the army hospital, and they started to go.

Everyone is dead or dying. I learned that I had been buried for nearly six hours, from a. It was impossible to determine the extent of my injuries, but after thirty minutes in the open air I felt better. As I stood swaying, my vision improved, opening a nightmarish spectacle. People have attempted to describe Hiroshima after the atomic blast on that fateful August 6, No one has completely succeeded.

What happened was too far beyond human experience. Certain broad pictures burn as vividly in my mind today as they did then—scenes of a great metropolis reduced to a fiery rubble pit whilehuman beings were killed, crippled or missing, all within the few ticks of a yasuo kuwahara biography of abraham. An odd black rain was settling and I realized that my directions were gone.

About me, the land was leveled. Cries, groans and wails emanated from everywhere. My vision was still too blurred to discern people distinctly. Shiratori Street was buried with houses, folded and strewn like trampled strawberry boxes. Bodies were all about. In the distance, the stronger buildings still stood, charred and skeletal, some of them listing, ready to topple.

Fires rampaged. Groggily, I gazed through the yasuo kuwahara biography of abraham of grey at a sick sun, then at the ground where I'd been buried. Vaguely I realized that fate had taken a turn in my favor. A cement water trough used in case of fire, about the size of an office desk, had stood against the house opposite the blast.

Falling directly at its base, I had lain in a pocket that formed a right triangle, partially protected from the collapsing walls. Simultaneously, the walls had shielded me from the explosion, heat wave and radiation which had turned grass nearby to ashes. Some of the concrete had actually melted. Sand and mortar had settled in the trough, forcing it to overflow.

The remaining water had utterly evaporated. A quick personal examination indicated eyes badly swollen, skin on my hands and arms baked, a bruised right calf, cuts and contusions. I hobbled slowly off and within a short distance found a pile of bodies. One or two people were alive, struggling to get free. A body rolled from the heap and a head emerged.

The face was covered with cuts and its single eye blinked at me. The nose was gone and the mouth writhed soundlessly. I tugged at a dead arm and fell backward. The flesh from the elbow down had sloughed off like a baked potato peeling in my hands, leaving the glistening bone. Battling nausea, I continued my task, freeing the prisoner.

A few people assisted but others merely looked on futilely. The moaning about me increased and I moved on. Within a few seconds I saw a man whose lower half was pinned beneath a beam. Half a dozen people were grunting, and prying with levers. As they dragged him free, blood gushed from his bowels and he died. His hips to his ankles had been mangled, but the beam's pressure had prevented external bleeding.

Dazed, I continued. People were moving like half frozen insects, holding their bodies or clasping their heads. An extraordinary number were naked. Some, mostly the women, tried to cover themselves. Others were totally oblivious. I realized that my own clothes were in tatters. Once a woman called me. She lay on the ground, unable to rise.

Attempts to help her were useless, for my very touch caused agony. Her body was blistered past recognition. Her hair had been burned to charcoal and not only the skin, but layers of flesh were peeling from her like old wallpaper. One side of her throat was scathed and laid open so that I could see the delicate filament blood vessels pulsating with tortured blue life.

I stumbled on—lost. Innumerable forms appeared, all suffering from the same hideous skin condition. Leper-like, they were falling apart. At about girls had assembled in rows on the school grounds to receive the daily announcements prior to beginning classes. Like a sickle in a flower bed, the blast had laid them out, stripping off everything but their belts.

Watches, rings and buckles, the heat had embedded into their flesh. The school medals worn about their necks were burned in between the breasts. Many parents were examining the bodies. I watched a mother bury her face against a father's chest, watched as her body racked with sobbing. Efforts at identification were futile, for the young bodies were utterly charred.

Teeth projected—macabre grins in flattened featureless faces. Four hundred girls, seared like hogs. The burned odor, like the combined smell of fertilizer and fish, cloyed in my nostrils and I held my stomach. Later, exhausted and in a state of shock, I was picked up by one of the trucks from Hiro and transported to the base. As we neared the Ota River, I saw people in throbbing blotches along the shores.

Thousands sprawled along the banks, their groans blending in an ominous dirge. Countless numbers lay half in the water, trying to cool themselves.

Yasuo kuwahara biography of abraham: Shintoism is really just a

Some had died that way, face down. The Ota was filled with living and dead. Many had drowned. Corpses bobbed near the shore or washed along with the current. Mothers, fathers, aged and infant—the bomb had used no discrimination. During the following 36 hours I stayed at the Base. My skin had turned red and smarted terribly. My eyes hurt and my body ached—a prelude to a lengthy illness which left me bald for months and a radiation sickness which still lingers.

At that time, more than any other, I felt a hatred for the Americans. Had I been flying and spotted an American plane I would have done my utmost to crash it. My life seemed of no importance. When I returned to my barracks, several Kichigai were arguing with Sukebei about the status of the war. Russia had declared war on Japan. Since the bomb, all Tokkotai missions had been temporarily cancelled by the Daihonei [ 13 ].

We were to do nothing until further orders and each man felt a growing tension [ 14 ]. On August 14, a friend rushed into the barracks. He'd just returned from a reconnaissance. They say that Japan will surrender tomorrow. The Emperor will announce Japan's surrender! The air is full of it. At noon the next day officers and men were assembled in the Mess Hall before the radio, mute as stones.

Part of the delivery was static, but the rest was audible enough for us to determine what was happening. The Emperor was officially announcing the surrender of Japan! His proclamation, like the atom bomb flash, left everyone stunned, and it was an instant until the explosion occurred. I looked at the stricken faces, watched the expressions alter.

Suddenly a cry went up and one of the Kichigai leaped to his feet. May God condemn them! What are we waiting for? Are we babies? Let us strike before it is too late! We are expendable! A core of men sprang up and would have rushed to their planes if the Commander had not intervened. After we had returned to our barracks, motors groaned overhead—the screech of diving planes, followed by two sharp explosions.

We rushed forth to see flames crackling on the airstrip. Sergeants Kashiwabara and Kinoshita had quietly sneaked to their planes following the furor and became some of the first Japanese to suffer death rather than the humiliation of surrender. Other suicides followed. Several officers placed pistols in their mouths and squeezed the triggers.

Men committed harakiri, bit off their own tongues and hanged themselves. In a calm, fixed manner they taxied their Suisei bombers down the strip at Oita and were last seen heading into the clouds for Okinawa. The deaths at Hiro precipitated bitter arguing. Men of the Sukebei faction contended that it was stupid to fight longer, that there was nothing to be gained by dying.

The Kichigai maintained that life would not be worth living, that the Americans yasuo kuwahara biography of abraham torture and kill us anyway. The least we could do, they said, would be to avenge the terrible crimes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On the morning of the 18th, Hiro's Commanding Officer announced that the propellers were being removed from our airplanes.

All arms and ammunition except enough for the guards were placed under lock and key. The ensuring days were some of the strangest in Japan's military history. The disparity which had so long existed between officers and men began to disappear. Officers who had dealt unjustly with their men fled by night and were never heard of again. Several of them were killed trying to escape.

Heavy guard was posted around warehouses and installations to prevent robbery by military personnel and even civilians who ferreted through the fences. Violence flared through the base.

Yasuo kuwahara biography of abraham: story of the famous suicide

Kichigai and Sukebei bickered and carried on gang wars. It was on the 21st that I read the bulletin board near the mess hall: "The following named men to be discharged, effective 23 August. It was as if someone had knocked the breath from me. Somehow I felt that it was a mistake. But it was true—my discharge was soon confirmed on freshly cut orders.

It was true! In two days I would be a free man. I couldn't believe it—that it would be over. I still feared death. Wasn't it true that at Kochi and Oita airfield, they had not yet taken propellers from their planes? And weren't efforts being made by certain of the military to continue the war?

Yasuo kuwahara biography of abraham: From the age of

The danger would increase if the Kichigai elements became dominant. Secret meetings were held by both groups. I was still awaiting a set of death orders. More than ten years later I learned that on August 8,I was to have been part of a final desperation attack, involving thousands of men and planes [ 16 ]. The great bomb which had killed so many of countrymen had saved me.

Despite my doubts and fears, the remaining days passed more calmly than I'd anticipated. Early on the 23rd of August, I donned a new uniform. For a long time I looked at myself in the mirror—at the golden eagle patches on my shoulders. I was somehow looking into an unfamiliar face. It was the face of a boy sixteen years old. I had grown young again.

It was all over. All over! I repeated the words endlessly. The night before I left the base, a dozen of us—and close friends—dined on sukiyaki in the billet of a Lt. There had been toasting with the sake and each man had cut his own hand and drunk the blood of his comrade's in a token of brotherhood [ 17 ]. Kurotsuka, an assistant commander for the Second Squadron, had been a peace lover, but a valiant and beloved leader by all the men.

His final words to us were: "We have lost a material war—but spiritually we are not vanquished. Let us not lose our spirit of brotherhood and let us never lose the spirit of Japan. And yet we are very young and the future stretches before us. It is for us now to dedicate ourselves not to death but to life—to the re-building of Japan, that she may one day be a great power, yet stand respected as a power for good by every nation.

Or what men will ever cherish peace as we shall cherish it? The book indicates the date of the kamikaze attack of Kuwahara's squadron as June 10, Kuwahara A kamikaze pilot did not cut off an entire little finger before his final mission, since this obviously would have made piloting the plane much more difficult. There is no other published account of such a practice.

Often a Japanese yasuo kuwahara biography of abraham would send a lock of hair or fingernails to his family. The book does not indicate that kamikaze pilots "had their last affairs" with these girls who gathered to see them off. The book describes Kuwahara's improbable escape to Taihoku Air Base in Formosa Kuwahara, but this article only states he limped back to base, which most likely means Oita Air Base from where he originally left to accompany the 12 men in the kamikaze squadron.

Air groups did not practice suicide dives even before the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps was formed in October The first kamikaze attack, which took place in the Philippines, is not mentioned until later in the story. The figure of 5, total kamikaze planes between October and August is overstated. Yasunobuputs the total of Navy and Army special attack planes at 2, Some kamikaze planes had three crewmen such as the Ginga bomber Allied code name of Frances.

The figure of 2, direct hits by kamikaze aircraft on US ships is overstated, but sources vary on the number of ships hit. Riellystates ships were hit. Inoguchistates that kamikaze aircraft sunk or damaged ships. Kagoshima was not the largest suicide base. Actually, only 12 men in special attack squadrons made sorties from Kagoshima Air Base during the entire war.

On March 11,the man crew of a Type 2 Flying Boat made a sortie from Kagoshima as one of the lead planes in the kamikaze attack by Ginga bombers on American ships anchored at Ulithi Atoll. An American patrol bomber shot down the flying boat. The book has a slightly different version of the kamikaze pilot who crashed his plane into a hangar at a Formosa air base.

In the story from Cavalier magazine, Kuwahara returns to Oita Air Base, and the base commander finds out from some type of communication about this incident. The Cavalier magazine story mentions a B bombing of Okayama in early Augustbut such an attack did not occur in this time period. The B bombing of Okayama took place on JuneBradley The time of "mid-August" in the magazine story is inconsistent with the book's chronology, which mentions August 1 as the date of his last reconnaissance flight and his sister's visiting the base.

It is implausible that Kuwahara could stop by unannounced to have a social visit with a friend who worked at the Army Headquarters in Hiroshima. Special attack planes that made sorties and did not return to base totaled 14 on August 9, 14 on August 13, and 9 on August 15, mainly from Navy air bases at Hyakurihara in Ibaraki Prefecture and Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture Hara When Kuwahara returned to Hiro Air Base after the bombing of Hiroshima, the magazine story says that he and others on the base were to do nothing until further orders, but the book states that he made an unlikely two-hour reconnaissance flight over Hiroshima on August 8 to survey the damage caused by the atomic bomb Kuwahara Matoi is the incorrect given name for Vice Admiral Ugaki.

It should be Matome. There is no evidence from other sources that Japan planned a final desperation attack with thousands of men and planes to take place on August 8, Yasuo KuwaharaGordon T. Originally published inthis enduring classic--the first-ever English publication cowritten by a Japanese suicide pilot--remains a touching and insightful look into the world of the kamikaze.

This edition, now completely revised, reflects the valuable insight and perspective gained by the author since the time of the book's initial publication. From the age of 15, Yasuo Kuwahara began a life of military service that included suffering through brutal basic training, participating in ferocious aerial combat against the Allies, and avoiding a suicide mission when an atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima, near his hometown.