Witness to War: Truk Lagoon's Master Diver Kimiuo Aisek

Witness to War:

Truk Lagoon’s Master Diver Kimiuo Aisek

Dianne M. Strong

Copyright 2015 by Dianne M. Strong

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Acknowledgements

While it is inevitable that I can’t remember or credit every person who made a difference in this book, I have to give it my best shot. I hope the others will forgive me.

Writing

The late Dr. Dirk A. Ballendorf, Director of the University of Guam’s (UOG) Micronesian Research Center (MARC); my writing mentor Bernie Chowdhury, author, The Last Dive; Simon Pridmore, IANTD, author, Scuba Confidential; author Robert Whiting in Japan; Dr. Don Shuster; the late Jim Smith; and all my former UOG students who taught me to write as a result of my teaching their voyage to discovery.

Japanese Communicators

Divers Fumiko and Akio Okada; Dr. Wakako Higuchi; Dr. Shinji Yamashita; Sensei Fumiko Harada-Ziemer; Yasuo Hasunuma; Dr. Fred Schumann, UOG; Takayuki Suenaga; Kunio Suenaga; and Hiroshi Yoshida, JEEP Island.

Researching

The late Klaus Lindemann; Capt. Ed O’Quinn; the late Capt. Dave Streit; Dan Bailey; the late Sam Redford; William Stewart; Sam McPhetres; Peter W. Wilson; the late Charles Hillinger; Miss Universe 1980 Shawn Weatherly; Evelyn Dudas; Tim Rock; Michele Giovannini; Enrico Cappelletti; Charlie Arneson; William Spurlock; Mark Greenwell; Dr. Robert Rogers; Gary Bridges; Dr. Bill Jeffery; Dr. Mac Marshall; Robert Bodkin; veteran Ted Waller, BM1; Masatoki Stephen; Sanjo Bojun; Emeren Atiniwin; Otniel Ludwig; Joshua Suka; Lukas Mechenuk; Gradvin K. Aisek; and the dive masters of Blue Lagoon Dive Shop.

Manuscript Review in addition to providing information:

Dr. Wakako Higuchi; Father Fran Hezel, SJ; Pauline Baird; Hisashi Noma; and Hayao Nogami for permission to print his painting of the Aikoku Maru.

Book Publishing

Chris Todd, Northern Marianas College; Mary Castro; Artist Ron Castro; and Sam Warwick, author of Shipwrecks of the Cunard Line (2012).

Book Promotion

Ray Gibson, K-57; The Guam Preservation Trust; Rosanna-Perez Barcinas; Jess Lujan, KUAM-TV; Asterio Takesy, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States of America; videographers Max Gleeson, Michael Gerken, Mike Mesgleski, Mike Haber, the Muna Brothers, and Burt Sardoma Jr.

Financial

FSM Visitors Board for a grant to print Witness To War promotional post cards in 2003; Nanako Lipai for running the Kickstarter campaign. Thanks to the 182 people who backed the hardcover printing of this book. Witness To War made its debut for the 40th anniversary of Blue Lagoon Dive Shop on 13 November 2013 in Chuuk, FSM.

Father Fran Hezel, SJ; Al Giddings; the late Alex Antonio Nolasco; my adopted Aisek Family, including Gradvin Aisek and Missy Sos; and above all, my unfathomable appreciation for my editor extraordinaire and Japanese translator David Jay Morris.

Kinsou Chapur, Arigato Gozaimasu and thank you for making possible this recording of Kimiuo Aisek’s life.

Dedication

For Ron, my best friend and buddy.

This is not the book we planned, but I think it’s even better.

Part of the proceeds of this book go to support the Kimiuo Aisek Memorial Museum which opened on 13 September 2014, adjacent to the Truk Blue Lagoon Resort and Dive Shop, Neauo Village, Weno, Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia.

1Foreword

Kimiuo Aisek is one of the few Pacific Islanders who have achieved international status, even before he was inducted posthumously into the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame in 2009. Born in Chuuk in the prewar years when Japan governed the islands, he found, as a young man, mentors in the Japanese military. As an adult, Kimiuo received training from his American friends. Even apart from his other accomplishments, the man straddled cultures and hurdled language barriers throughout his whole life. In this, he was like so many other Micronesians of his time.

In this tribute to Kimiuo Aisek, Dianne Strong explores his cultural roots, what connected him to his own people, as well as what made him the distinctive individual he became. After all, Kimiuo Aisek was the person, more than any other, responsible for wreck diving in Chuuk, the atoll that is quite aptly styled as the graveyard of the Japanese fleet. In this book, the latest in a spate of biographies of Micronesian Islanders, the author offers us a charming view of the Chuukese boy, always fond of the sea, who is befriended first by Japanese and later Americans as he develops his passion for diving.

This book is many things for many different readers. For the old-timers among us who know Chuuk well and have lived through some of the US administration, it entertains with names and events that trigger hundreds of memories. For diving enthusiasts, it is an orientation to one of the premiere wreck-diving sites and its past. For anyone, it is an enchanting tale of a largely self-educated islander who passed cultural boundaries–not always so effortlessly.

But the book, similar to the wreck diving experience itself, is also a reminder of dark times with the toll of death and destruction they imposed. The author, like her subject, expressed the hope that the sunken ships might also remain a silent testimony as to why war must forever yield to peace in the future.

Francis X. Hezel, SJ

Hagatna, Guam, May 2013

Editor’s Notes

My friendship with Dianne Strong dates back to my days as the International News Editor of the Marianas Variety, Guam Edition. And how could I not call her my friend...she wrote the very first fan letter I ever received for my series of highly opinionated bi-weekly columns.

I was still surprised when, shortly after my return to my longtime second home in Nagano City, Japan, in the autumn of 2012, she wrote and asked me if I would be interested in being the editor of her book about the life of Kimiuo Aisek, the father of the scuba diving industry in Chuuk. Although I hold an advanced open water diving certification from PADI, and have probably been underwater in more exotic places than most average recreational divers, to tell the truth, I had never been to Chuuk, and had never heard of Kimiuo. While I also speak Japanese well and have for years been an amateur student of Japanese history and culture, I had no particular knowledge of Chuuk when it was still called Truk, and was a part of the Japanese Empire.

In short, I wasn’t sure what I could bring to the party.

Dianne assured me, however, that what she needed was someone with a professional editorial background who could also help her communicate with some of her Japanese sources, and help her confirm her understanding of some of the aspects of Japanese culture, history and morality that were so important to Kimiuo.

I am very glad I said yes.

Through her years of research, her close personal relationships with Kimiuo, his family, and so many of the people who knew him, and most of all the tremendous love and respect she obviously felt for him, Dianne has brought to life the story of this truly remarkable man. What’s more, she has managed to do so from his perspective, rather than her own. The author has attempted to show the world that Kimiuo lived through his eyes, and in my view, she has succeeded admirably.

One area where this is particularly true is in Kimiuo’s relationship with his Japanese war buddies. While Dianne has not omitted facts about the abusive side of the Japanese military, Kimiuo’s story is about the friendships he made and how they changed his life. This is a major theme that runs throughout the book – as it ran throughout all the stories Kimiuo himself used to tell.

I didn’t know Kimiuo when Dianne first asked me to edit this book, but, thanks to her, I now do. I only wish that I could have met him in person.

As for some of the mundane details of our editorial style, when writing Japanese words in Roman letters, we have followed the Hepburn system of transliteration, but we have avoided using any special symbols that would be unfamiliar to most readers. In writing Japanese personal names we have followed the typical western word order, that is, given name first, family name second.

In some cases, the kanji (Japanese characters) for Japanese words or names we used can be read in a variety of different ways. For example, many Japanese would tend to read the kanji for Kimiuo’s good friend, Lt. Sasai, as Shinoi, rather than Sasai. In such cases, we always tried to confirm the correct reading with reliable Japanese sources, but if there are any mistakes, the responsibility is ours alone, and we do apologize.

Regarding Truk vs. Chuuk, we have used both. The District of Truk became the State of Chuuk in 1979 with the founding of the Federated States of Micronesia. Like most islanders, Kimiuo used these terms interchangeably. In this book, however, we have tried to use Truk when referring to the time before 1979, and when speaking about dives in the Lagoon, and Chuuk when referring to the modern state.

Islanders also often interchange the names Tonoas (some spell it Toloas) and Dublon, Moen and Weno, and so on. For the most part, islanders did not use the Japanese names for their islands during the Nan’yo Gunto days, but we have done so at times when it seemed historically relevant.

We also draw the reader's attention to our use of day-month-year as they were locally on Truk or in Japan when writing dates. For example, the Operation Hailstone attack occurred on 17 and 18 February 1944. The hours shown are generally either Tokyo time or Truk/Guam time.

David Jay Morris

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Editor’s Notes

A Tribute

Preface

Chapter One: Uchida

Chapter Two: Sasai

Chapter Three: Tidal Change

Chapter Four: Island Youth

Chapter Five: Man of the Sea

Chapter Six: Starfish

Chapter Seven: Jet Age

Chapter Eight: The Aikoku Maru

Chapter Nine: Dive Boats

Chapter Ten: Blue Lagoon Dive Shop

Chapter Eleven: Aikoku Reprise

Chapter Twelve: Divers Talk Story

Chapter Thirteen: The Reunion

Chapter Fourteen: The Resort

Chapter Fifteen: The Legacy

Postscript

Kimiuo Aisek Memorial Museum

About the Author

Bibliography

A Tribute

Truk Lagoon, February 10, 1975. The four Trukese men that stood quietly in the small Fisheries shed that morning said it all. Sea people to the core, endlessly shy but extraordinarily capable, Angkin, Sinipas, Mike and Kimiuo inched slowly forward to shake my hand. I was thrilled! I knew the look so well. I had seen it so many times on the sea weathered faces of great Cuban skippers, Tahitian pearlers and Gloucester’s finest cod fishermen. Quiet, confident, capable men with a riveting common ground…the sea.

That morning, one man seemed more at ease, less shy. He would later emerge as a visionary, a man of wisdom, an island chief who would establish Truk Lagoon as a world-class undersea Mecca. I could not have imagined that in just five days, with Kimiuo at my side at a depth of 130 feet, my camera would frame the hatch of the lost Japanese 330-foot submarine Shinohara, a silent warrior whose periscope had focused on the chaos at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.

Thirty-eight years later, images of other events, expeditions and great undersea explorers gently drift through my mind. These personal experiences include an extraordinary roll call of the greats --Ballard, Cousteau, Cameron, Sagalavitch and countless others. Included in these images, always, is the smile of a magical Micronesian storyteller and statesman, Kimiuo, this man I loved, and of me, dancing to his gentle drum in the calm crystal waters of Truk Lagoon. Like others who loved Kimiuo and treasured his friendship, I pray that someday, somewhere, in the pristine deep we will again, meet, embrace and pause for a while to talk story. I miss him.

Al Giddings, Pray Montana, 2013

At age 17 Chuukese islander Kimiuo Aisek witnessed Operation Hailstone, the American attack on Truk Lagoon. At age 46 he opened Blue Lagoon Dive Shop, thus founding the diving industry in Chuuk.

Preface

My life changed on January 11, 1971. On that Monday night, ABC television presented The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau‘s "Lagoon of Lost Ships." This documentary captivated Americans like me who had reveled in Lloyd Bridges' adventures as Sea Hunt's Mike Nelson, a TV series that began in 1958. Rather than the black-and-white of early TV, however, Cousteau's photographers now used color film and underwater lights to capture the exquisite beauty of Truk's shipwrecks. As a two-year veteran cold-water wreck diver, I now dreamed of scuba diving on these tropical ship reefs.

Never could I have imagined that the US Territory of Guam would become my home for the next forty plus years. Just eighty non-stop jet minutes away, Truk immediately became the saltwater pool in my backyard. As a trained journalist who always kept a trip log, it was only natural for me to record my first visit to Truk in June 1973. Kimiuo Aisek, then a Fisheries employee, guided my husband, Ron, and me. By 1998, after I had made more than forty trips to Truk, Kimiuo had started to introduce me as his adopted American daughter. I had also collected a thick file of trip logs by that time.

The oral tradition thrives in the Pacific islands, and Kimiuo gained his reputation not only as a wreck finder and dive guide, but also as a humble islander who loved to talk story. By 1999 I had decided to write his biography so that these wonderful stories would not die. Both Kimiuo and the Aisek family agreed, and gave me their full support.

When Kimiuo repeated certain stories for the divers who became his guests, I realized these were the ones that were his life. With every trip to Truk, later known as Chuuk, I was able to use them to pick up more threads of the story of this unique man, especially after his passing in 2001.

Despite teaching writing at the University of Guam for eighteen years, I never thought I would write a biography. But I made a promise to Kimiuo. Leon Edel wrote in Ars Biographica, A biographer is a novelist under oath. Thus, I have tried to remain true to Kimiuo’s view of his world, but still make his talk story live.

I have pieced together his story based on my research on the Japanese Nan'yo Gunto era in Micronesia, into which Kimiuo was born in 1927. Other scholars such as Mark Peattie, Francis X. Hezel SJ, Lin Poyer, Suzanne Falgout, Laurence Marshall Carucci, and Wakako Higuchi are the experts in this area. I claim no such expertise. But I have done my best to document accurately the events that enveloped Kimiuo’s life, as a witness to war.

While Al Giddings, Paul Tzimoulis, Dan Bailey, Klaus Lindemann, Hisashi Noma, Gary Bridges, Michael Gerken, Max Gleeson and many others have documented the wrecks of Truk Lagoon, I have concentrated only on the Aikoku Maru. As readers will discover, this ship was Kimiuo’s introduction to the Japanese military. The Aikoku’s profile thus served as the company logo after Kimiuo opened his Blue Lagoon Dive Shop on November 13, 1973.

Many people have assisted me in this endeavor (see Acknowledgments), yet any mistakes I have made I accept as my own. Kinisou Chapur, Arigato Gozaimasu and thank you for joining me in getting to know Kimiuo Aisek.

Chapter One: Uchida

Natsushima – Nan’yo – Japanese mandated islands

Truk Lagoon, Caroline Islands – 1942

Kimiuo Aisek, a barefoot youth of fifteen, ambled down the dirt road near the Japanese Fourth Fleet Naval Station on his native island of Tonoas. Spotting the handsome Trukese, a naval officer walked out from behind the fence. As the afternoon’s stillness enveloped him, he asked for a coconut to drink.

Every Trukese knew the importance of meeting any demand from the Japanese. With agility born of necessity, Kimiuo climbed the nearest palm tree, plucked a ripe coconut, and gracefully returned to the ground. Without hesitating, the officer handed him his knife. The young islander sliced the top off with one skillful stroke, trimmed the flap to form a good-sized lip for sipping, and handed it to the waiting naval officer.

Truk’s tropical humidity hung heavily over the atoll. The pungent fragrance of the muddy mangroves and the lagoon’s low tide permeated the sultry afternoon air. The stifling weather was typical for islands located at latitude seven degrees north of the Equator in the western Pacific. The trade winds had not yet arrived, and the sporadic showers of rainy season blanketed the island in moisture.

The officer’s uniform was appropriate for the tropics in the Nan’yo. He wore shorts and a shirt with short sleeves. His collar was unbuttoned. The green material was similar to denim. Kimiuo had also seen naval officers wearing the same material with long pants and a long-sleeved shirt.

The Japanese officer now took several swigs of the refreshing juice, paused and wiped the moisture from his lips with the back of his hand. Balancing the heavy nut in the open palm of his left hand, he sized up the well-developed youth.

Kimiuo handed over the knife, carefully extending it handle first.

What’s your name? the officer asked in his native language.

Kimiuo, the youth responded. Then, surprisingly, he ignored the custom of maintaining respectful silence. In fluent Japanese with his gentle voice, Kimiuo asked the officer the same question.

Chief Petty Officer Uchida, the man replied.

For three years Kimiuo had attended kogakko – the Japanese public school for islanders on Tonoas. The long mornings had been spent learning the language of the Empire, with the challenging Hiragana and Katakana syllabaries. Students also received moral instruction and guidance in how to become good children of the Emperor – shushin kyoiku – moral education. Even Kimiuo’s native Tonoas now bore a Japanese name – Natsushima – Summer Island.

Nan’yo

Since the arrival of the armed cruiser Kurama on 12 October 1914, the Japanese had controlled these islands. Hoping to reap economic rewards, the Empire had sent traders and skilled fishermen to Truk, while discouraging marine commerce from other nations. By 1919 the League of Nations had legitimized Japan’s presence, creating a Class C Mandate: the Nan’yo – Mandated Islands of the South Seas. Japan would administer these 2,000 island territories with the restriction that they not be militarized.

Included in this mandate were the Caroline Islands – with Truk at their center, along with the Marshalls, Palau and the Marianas – with the exception of the American territory of Guam. A purely civilian administration – the Nan’yo-cho – was established in March 1922 to fulfill the mandated obligations for the good of the local people.

Fourth Fleet of the Japanese Imperial Navy

But in December 1939, when Kimiuo was thirteen years old, the Japanese Fourth Fleet of the Imperial Navy – Nihon Teikoku Kaigun – moved to Truk. Its 500 square-mile protected lagoon offered natural anchorages for the fleet. By moving in, the Empire was merely exercising Yamato damashii – the spirit of Japan. The civilian government that had built a hospital on Tonoas, schools on each of the lagoon’s major islands and encouraged commercial fishing and exports of copra, was now suddenly replaced by a war-minded, less benevolent military administration.

Before Kimiuo’s time, the Trukese people had been no strangers to foreign colonists. Spain had ruled these islands until Germany purchased them along with the Marianas. Close to Kimiuo’s house in Kuchua village, within view of the Naval Hospital, the German mission school Finoris still stood. Most islands in the lagoon had similar schools. Many Trukese elders were able to read from German Bibles and had learned their alphabet with the fine hand of German script. By the time the Japanese administrators took over from the Germans in the 1920s, no fewer than 200 Japanese traders and fishermen – including the patriarch Koben Mori – were already inhabiting these islands.

Coconut Juice

Under the shade of a mango tree that had just started to flower, the naval officer continued sipping the sweet coconut. Appreciating the youth’s respectful command of the Japanese language, Uchida lingered and struck up an unlikely conversation. He invited Kimiuo to visit him anytime. But the Gunko – Naval Base of the Fourth Imperial Fleet – was a restricted area. Kimiuo was to come to the gate and ask for Uchida. When Uchida had liberty, he promised he would visit the boy at his home.

Tonoas’s five villages by 1942 had thousands of Japanese military personnel. In Kimiuo’s village of Kuchua alone, the Japanese had built the Fourth Fleet Naval Hospital in Nepi, on the island’s northernmost peninsula near his Kinamwe church. Moving westward from this site were, among other installations, the headquarters for the Fourth Fleet, its Base Force, and its Naval Civil Engineering Department. The 41st Naval Guard Unit was also in this area. West of his village was Nechap, home of the submarine base and ship repair facilities and piers.

A Visit by Uchida

Uchida was true to his word. He would show up frequently at Kimiuo’s house in nearby Kuchua village, and he’d almost always bring a gift of sake. Kimiuo would give it to the head of his family, Uncle Naoshy Shirai, who himself was half-Japanese. Sake was a rare treat, as the Japanese prohibited the Trukese from drinking alcohol.

Cooled by the adjacent billowing mangroves, the Japanese officer and the two Trukese hosts would share tako – octopus steamed in coconut milk. As they filled coconut shell cups with small shots of sake, Uchida and Uncle Naoshy would relax and for a brief time forget there was a war going on. The elders sat cross-legged on a woven pandanus mat, while Kimiuo kept his customary respectful distance.

Slowly, and hesitantly at first, Uchida told his hosts about himself. He was yosetsu-ka – a welder. He was assigned to the Japanese Fourth Ship Repair Department of the Fourth Fleet. Uncle Naoshy then asked the officer questions. Being half-Japanese himself, he could be braver than Kimiuo who was afraid the Japanese would chop him – chop off his head – if he appeared too nosy.

Uchida visited more frequently now, and Kimiuo’s family looked forward to his company. When breadfruit was in season, the women would slice it thinly into chips and deep fry it. Uchida would sometimes bring cold beer as a special treat. Uncle Naoshy and Kimiuo were good fishermen, and they often served fresh sashimi with squeezed slices of tangy lime.

Leisure Time on Tonoas

As more Japanese arrived to colonize the islands, immigrant populations swelled. They had come to the Nan’yo to escape Japan’s calamities – the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, crop failures and the stock market crash. Thus grew the need to provide leisure-time activities for an ever-increasing number of unmarried men.

Other than the military, a large number of Truk’s Japanese were fishermen from Okinawa. They had first settled in the lagoon in the 20’s. They were known to work hard on their aku – tuna – fishing boats. And when they relaxed from their heavy labor they went to the pleasure bars on Tonoas.

The Okinawans favored awamori – a powerful shochu-like drink originally made from millet, but later from long-grained Thai style rice. The barmaids who served them – shakufu – also served as prostitutes.

Many Navy and Army men frequented Tonoas Town’s teahouses, or hana machi – flower quarters – during their liberty. Kimiuo’s friend, Uchida, did not patronize these places, however. As a chief petty officer, he was not eligible to patronize the elegant Tokiwa – Evergreen, reserved for senior naval officers, but he would be welcome at the Maruman, the Yamata and the Nankai – all first class establishments. Here men could drink sake or beer, play mahjong and listen to 78 rpm records of Noriko Awaya, Japan’s most popular singer, on a wind-up Victrola.

The offerings at the Navy Consolation Unit were more obvious – prostitutes from Korea and Okinawa. These pseudo-geisha were often shoddy-looking, wearing shabby tropical rayon kimonos and humidity-laden makeup.

Somehow Uchida preferred the companionship of his adopted Trukese friends rather than carousing with his war buddies. He would resume his customary place on Uncle Naoshy’s pandanus mat, where he could see the mud skippers on the mangrove flat, and be cooled by an occasional onshore breeze from Truk Lagoon.

Uchida visited the Aisek-Shirai family frequently and Kimiuo always looked forward to these meetings. The youth had a natural curiosity, which he would sometimes unleash, despite his respectful manners.

The Aikoku Maru

A year after they first met, in 1943, Uchida was transferred to the Aikoku Maru, a classy ship. Her name, Aikoku, translated to Love Our Country. For the Japanese, however far it stretched, their homeland, their Empire, meant everything. Originally built as a non-military ship, the Aikoku would also bear the name maru – Japanese for circle. In contrast to military vessels, these ships were expected to complete a voyage and return their loved ones home safely.

Famous naval architect Dr. Haruki Watsuji had designed the Aikoku Maru for the O.S.K. Line (Osaka Mercantile Steamship Company) as a combined freighter-passenger liner for its Japan-South America route. Built in 1940 along with her sister ships, the Gokoku and Hokoku Marus, she was to be one of the world’s most luxurious ocean liners.

But the Empire’s more pressing needs were to change the Aikoku’s destiny. The current commander of the Combined Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, had studied at Harvard University and served as a naval attaché in Washington from 1925 to 1928. In 1940 Yamamoto launched an ambitious plan for expanding his fleet despite strained national finances. His sempaku tairyo choyo policy called for large-scale mercantile shipping requisitions. Some freighters were thus converted into armed merchant cruisers. By the start of the Pacific War, thirty percent of the Empire’s merchant marine – 482 vessels comprising 1,740,200 tons – had been pressed into military service.

The Indispensible Glue

Sea power was vital for maritime nations. Countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States and Japan – needed strong navies for their development, to nourish their people and to protect them. As the Empire of Japan became during World War II an entity sprawling across a third of the globe, wrote Parillo in The Japanese Merchant Marine on World War II, then the Japanese merchant marine was the indispensible glue that cemented the structure into a viable economic and political unit. Without shipping, Japan could have no factories disgorging guns and planes, no shipyards launching the instruments of sea power, and no labor force content enough to man the engines of production. In short, without shipping, Japan could have no capacity for waging war in twentieth century terms.

To post a soldier overseas required tons of shipping, especially to the far stretches of the countries that would fall to the Empire as well as its mandated Nan’yo. The supply area stretched from the Aleutians to the Solomons, to New Guinea, Nauru and the Marcus Islands. The approved rations for soldiers in the Imperial Japanese Army varied from two to four pounds of food per day. It was estimated that the more than half-million Japanese in the southern regions needed upward of two million tons of merchantmen. As Japan lacked a large naval fleet, this responsibility was now laid by Japan’s military upon the hulls of the nation’s merchant fleet.

The shipping of natural materials to Japan to fuel her military machine required establishing and defending shipping routes. A map would depict the upside down tree from Japan. The main trunk would grow south through the Ogasawara – the Bonin Islands of Japan – down the Marianas Archipelago to the hub of Truk. Here branches would flow east to the Marshalls, and south to New Guinea, the Solomons and Rabaul.

Converted Cruiser Squadron

In November 1941, the now Admiral Yamamoto ordered the formation of the 24 Sentai – Converted Cruiser Squadron – and assigned it to the Nan’yo. The Aikoku was thus converted for military use and never entered civilian service. Her first assignment had been in the Marshall Islands in November 1941. Now in 1942 the beautiful ship was in Truk. Uchida the welder was joining the officer crew that was comprised mostly of conscripted naval reservists.

He broke the news of his transfer to his Trukese friends. By now Kimiuo felt bold enough to ask the questions.

"Why do you transfer to Aikoku?"

Because I’m one of the good men, Uchida replied.

Good in what? the youth asked.

"Yosetsu" – welding – replied Uchida.

And what else?

I’m one of the damage controllers.

In wartime, skilled welders could make the difference between whether a damaged ship remained afloat to continue the Empire’s battles, or sank.

Feeling the effects of the sake and his satisfied belly, Uncle Naoshy was by now feeling braver. He took over the questioning.

"Where do you go from here on Aikoku?"

Rabaul.

Rabaul was a natural deep-water harbor on New Britain Island, New Guinea, 695 miles due south of Truk. This port was an important staging area for the Japanese activities in Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands and to the north. This direct route from Guadalcanal to Tokyo would be dubbed by some the Tokyo Express.

Intrigued, Kimiuo now took over the questioning.

What you go Rabaul for?

Carry supplies from Japan to Truk to Rabaul.

Truk’s location midway between Saipan and Rabaul made it an ideal base of operations for the Empire’s Fourth Fleet. In The Last Zero Fighter: Firsthand Accounts from WWII Japanese Naval Pilots (2010), Dan King quotes Rear Admiral Sadatoshi Tomioka’s objective for taking Rabaul in January 1942.

In the initial plans, Rabaul, strategically located at the northeastern tip of the island of New Britain [an Australian territory], was fixed as the main Japanese objective. Of great potential value to the Allies as a naval base for the protection of communication lines to Australia, it could also serve as a base for bomber attacks against the key Japanese naval stronghold of Truk. Conversely, its control by Japan would secure Truk’s southern flank and give the Japanese Navy an advance air base from which the sea area to the northeast of Australia could be reconnoitered for signs of Allied fleet activity.

Rikusentai

"Also carry rikusentai," – Japanese marines, a naval landing party, Uchida continued. These were sailors trained as infantrymen. The Sino-Japanese War from 1937 had proven the effectiveness of training these marines in small arms and infantry tactics and using them for landing parties. The history of these rikusentai went back as far as Vladivostok in 1918 and the Russo-Japanese War. Rikusentai were also instrumental in occupying the German-held islands of Micronesia, including Truk, as part of nanshin – the Empire’s southward advance.

So far, how many trips you make?

So far, three trips. Sometimes we go to Japan to bring supplies Japan-Truk-Rabaul.

Uchida’s motherland was only 1,800 miles northwest of Truk.

You’re not afraid? Kimiuo asked, with the bravery characteristic of youth.

Uchida drew in a breath, and looked down at his coconut shell cup of sake. His eyes met those of Uncle Naoshy, two men almost of the same age, and with almost identical Japanese eyes. Uchida stared at Kimiuo for almost two minutes. His eyes didn’t seem to blink.

Suddenly Kimiuo saw tears in Uchida’s eyes. Before Uchida even opened his mouth to reply, Kimiuo felt himself being overcome by a wave of pity. For all his fifteen years he had lived in an island culture dominated by the Japanese. Despite living in Truk, he felt he was a child of the Emperor. Kimiuo had done more than just learn the language of the motherland: he had grown up learning and following Japanese customs. He knew the etiquette of maintaining proper station. He knew the code of curbing public display of emotion.

Kimiuo was now painfully aware that by his tears, Uchida had breached his basic code of conduct as a soldier of Japan. Uchida was obligated to always maintain a stoic face in public, however much emotion he might be feeling inside.

I have a family in Japan, Uchida began, his words spoken barely above a whisper, four children, and then my wife.

His eyes now glanced down to the woven pandanus mat.

But this is war, he continued. I have to go, even though I am afraid. I have to do this for my country.

The three drank sake that day from two o’clock until after sunset, when Uchida announced, reluctantly, that he had to go back. His ride to the Aikoku in the small launch in the rough seas of the lagoon would take two hours.

The Aikoku Maru in port 1943

Whenever his ship was in port during 1943, Uchida continued to visit Kimiuo and his family. By this time Kimiuo was working for the Japanese Navy’s Fourth Transportation Department as a stevedore. Local workers were organized into butai – a military unit. They were entreated by their supervisors to help the war effort, to work for Tenno Heika – for their Emperor. Despite being considered third class citizens, the Trukese were expected to conduct themselves like soldiers. Kimiuo had always liked playing soldier, and he relished an opportunity to help the war effort.

His job was to ferry supplies out to the ships. He was also responsible for maintaining and operating the small boats as well as the channel marker lights and buoys.

Uchida said, That’s good, when Kimiuo reported this news to him.

On Board the Aikoku Maru

The first time Kimiuo made a delivery to the Aikoku with the other gunzoku – civilian employees of the military – Uchida greeted the youth warmly. When there was a break in the work, the chief petty officer proudly took him on a tour of the ship.

While Kimiuo had been on the decks of more than thirty ships, as he delivered ammunition and supplies, this was the first time he had been allowed to go beyond the main deck. As the Aikoku had eight decks, there was a lot to see. Chief Petty Officer Uchida took the boy to the bridge, the compass bridge, the sun deck, the promenade deck, the shelter deck, the lower deck, and finally, to the cargo holds. As a converted cargo-passenger liner, the ship had many features that Kimiuo would never have seen on cargo ships.

When Uchida led the youth to the engine room, Kimiuo could not contain his excitement. He saw the small skylights, the narrow catwalk and then marveled at the powerful twin Mitsubishi B&W diesel engines.

Kimiuo was surprised when Uchida used some words that did not sound like Japanese. As Dan King pointed out after interviewing veteran Haruo Yoshino for The Last Zero Fighter, the Japanese Navy patterned itself after the British Navy…Because English had become the new international language, the Navy used a lot of English vocabulary words. Many functions aboard the ship were westernized. The officers ate from full china sets with silverware… "We used English alphabet signal flags to send messages in our own language. A drill was aramu (alarm). The deck was dekki, a length of cable was keburu, dandopawa meant a sound-powered telephone. A group of aviators in the same plane…was referred to as a pe-ah (pair)."

Uchida was surprised by the youth’s rapt attention to even the smallest details. Kimiuo reminded him of his own teenage son back in Japan. Uchida was proud of the Aikoku Maru. Even more importantly, he was teaching this island youth about his ship that was serving the Empire.

When the Trukese laborers finished and were heading for the ladder, Uchida approached Kimiuo with a small parcel. Uchida’s voice softened almost to a whisper.

Take this to Naoshy for your family, he instructed. It would be the first of many such gifts – a few precious packs of cigarettes with the Imperial Chrysanthemum symbol on the wrapper, some bars of laundry soap, and usually food treats – yokan – sweets made from azuki bean paste, mikan