At the start of setting up this website, I’d like to mention that the 2 events and one encounter with the crew member’s bereaved family had a great effect on me.
One of the events was the B-29 [SALVO SALLY] Miyazaki Memorial Service which was held at the hangar shed of the independent administrative institution, the Civil Aviation College adjacent to the Miyazaki Airport in the Kyushu region on the 28th April 2018. The other one was about the Fudo Peace Park which was constructed in the Miyagi prefecture in the Tohoku region in 2015. (I’ll touch upon these two particulars later.)
These 2 events were created and held by the volunteers focusing on the locals, but both of them were in fact large-scale. Even though they were such large-scale memorial services as well as memorial monuments, regrettably, all the information couldn’t be conveyed to all the related crew members’ families. In the Fudo Peace Park which is a huge site just like a baseball ground the memorial monuments for each of the 34 crew members who were killed in the crashed 3 B-29s in Mt. Fudo have been established. Nevertheless, their bereaved families had not been informed of its existence. (As of the end of December 2018)
Specifically, you can easily guess what would happen to the memorial service if its aims and records hadn’t been kept going together with the memorial monuments which wouldn’t have had a chance to connect with their bereaved families and its management couldn’t be passed on to the next generation. Now, it has been revealed that many groups as well as individuals have also been facing these kinds of
problems. Unfortunately, some memorial services will be forgotten because their records haven’t been kept and some memorial monuments will disappear because of the time-related degradation not only in the meaning of their existence but also their existence being unmanaged.
Among the memorial monuments introduced in this website, some of them paid tribute, saying, “Death wipes out both friends and foes.” and others were derided, being spoken ill of as unpatriotic people in war-time.
I truly believe that all sorts of memorial services as well as memorial monuments will contribute to international peace, international cooperation and international friendship and it will be helpful as a guidepost for hope and peace between all nations. And I would like to tell all the crew members’ bereaved families, “Your precious relatives have been memorialised in Japan, taking great care.”
Finally, I’m telling about the encounter with a certain crew member’s bereaved family. I had a chance to meet the bereaved family of the B-29 crew member who had been captured in Fukuoka in the Kyushu region, had been sent to the Military Command of the Empire of Japan and had been beheaded at the end of the Pacific War.
I’ve known about the decapitation (Seibugun Affair) of the Allied Forces crew member prisoner of war which had happened in Fukuoka by the Military Command of the Empire of Japan, but I have never imagined that such a direct connection with his bereaved family of that affair would occur. It was so traumatic for me who had only imagined the happy feeling, having the memorial service, if we have the connection with the crew members’ bereaved families. Subsequently, I kept being distressed for a long time with the fact that I couldn’t imagine the happy feeling no matter how I responded.
However, I started moving forward again after having sorted out my feelings, in the following ways, I’ll never forget the victims during the extremely cruel times called a war, regardless of whether friends or foes, I’ll never turn away from the fact that the misfortunate incident had happened and I’ll hand down the true history in order not to make the cruel times happen in the future. For those reasons, I’ll make an effort as much as I can, if the bereaved family seeks any information which they want to know. This is not what anyone can do, but I, who have the connection with them incidentally, only can do. So, giving thanks to the unexpected encounter I’ll listen to them in good faith, having trust in each other as human-beings. If I don’t leave those records behind, everything will be the same as if nothing happened. The important thing is that the facts will be passed on to the next generation.
I would appreciate it if you could give me your warm support and cooperation.
January 2019
Site Administrator