The Pillow Book #99

from Sei Shonagon"#99 – Adorable things

The face of a child drawn on a melon.

A baby sparrow that comes hopping up when one imitates the squeak of a mouse; or again, when one has tied it with a thread round its leg and its parents bring insects or worms and pop them in its mouth – delightful!

A baby of two or so is crawling rapidly along the ground. With his sharp eyes he catches sight of a tiny object and, picking it up with his pretty little fingers, takes it to show to a grown-up person.

A child, whose hair has been cut like a nun’s, is examining something; the hair falls over his eyes, but instead of brushing it away he holds his head to the side. The pretty white cords of his trouser skirt are tied round his shoulders, and this too is most adorable.

A young palace page, who is still quite small, walks by in ceremonial costume.

One picks up a pretty baby and holds him for a while in one’s arms; while one is fondling him, he clings to one’s neck and then falls asleep.

The objects used during the Display of Dolls.

One picks up a tiny lotus leaf that is floating on a pond and examines it. Not only the lotus leaves, but little hollyhock flowers, and indeed all small things, are most adorable.

An extremely plump baby, who is about a year old and has lovely white skin, comes crawling toward one, dressed in a long gauze robe of violet with the sleeves tucked up.

A little boy of about eight who reads aloud from a book in his childish voice.

Pretty, white chicks who are still not fully fledged and look as if their clothes are too short for them; cheeping loudly, they follow one on their long legs or walk close to the mother hen.

Duck eggs.

An urn containing the relics of some holy person.

Wild pinks."
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Sei Shonagon (965 to 1017) as translated in Columbia University's Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600.

The Pillow Book #148

from Sei Shonagon
"#148 - Repulsive things – The back of a piece of sewing. Hairless baby mice tumbled out of their nest. The seams of a leather robe before the lining’s been added. The inside of a cat’s ear. A rather dirty place in darkness.

A very ordinary woman looking after lots of children. The way a man must feel when his wife, who he’s not really very fond of, is ill for a long time."

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Sei Shonagon (965 to 1017) had a strong personality - her proclamations, observations and anecdotes in The Pillow Book never cease to delight and puzzle. It's a peep into a world that is about as far removed from today (in the west) as you can get. Liverputty has hijacked her to be our woman from the Heian Court. Translated by Meredith McKinney.

The Pillow Book #65, #66, #67

from Sei Shonagon
"#65 – Poetic anthologies – The Manyoshu. The Kokinshu.

#66 – Topics of poetry – The capital. The kudzu vine. The water burr. Horses. Hail.

#67 – Disturbing things – The mother of a monk who’s embarked on the twelve-year mountain retreat.

The retainers who accompany their master on a visit to some unfamiliar place on a moonless night – to avoid being seen, they don’t light a fire but just sit there in a row, waiting uneasily in the darkness for him to reappear.

You give a servant, whom you don’t really know and trust yet, some precious thing to take to someone, and then she’s late returning.

A child who’s still too young to talk throws his little head back and bursts into tears, and won’t let anyone pick him up and comfort him."

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Sei Shonagon (965 to 1017) is the author of the timeless classic, The Pillow Book, which is part diary, part lists, and a whole lot of strange and strong opinions packed into a single volume. For an undetermined space of time, Miss Sei will serve as Liverputty's courtesan from Kyoto during the high point of the Heian Court period. Translated by Meredith McKinney.

The Pillow Book #55 & #56

from Sei Shonagon
"#55 – Young people and babies should be plump. Provincial Governors and suchlike people who have some authority should also be on the portly side.

#56 – Little children waving quaint toy bows or sticks about in play are wonderfully cute. It makes me want to stop the carriage and scoop them up and gaze my fill. And what a delightful whiff of incense from their clothes lingers in the air as the carriage goes on its way again. "
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The Pillow Book is a world masterpiece. Few things are as mysterious and alluring as the will and wit of the Japanese female, especially in the exotic age of the Heian Period. Sei Shonagon, as translated by Meredith McKinney, (thanks ladies!) will be serving as Liverputty's correspondence from 11th century Kyoto.

The Pillow Book #54

from Sei Shonagon
"It’s disgusting when a well-bred young man casually calls out the name of some low-ranking woman he’s visiting, in a way that reveals his intimacy with her. It’s much more impressive if he pretends not to have it quite right, even though in fact he knows her name perfectly well. If he’s visiting the apartments of women in palace service, he should really enlist a grounds-man to call her – though of course this is not a good idea at night – and if it’s some other place then he should employ one of his retainers. After all, everyone will recognize him if it’s his own voice.

"However, there can be no objection if it’s someone inconsequential, or a young girl."
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Sei Shonagon (965 to 1017) is one of the great figures in Japanese literature and a contemporary of Lady Murasaki, though the two served in rival clans. The Pillow Book is part diary, part lists, and a whole lot more. She will, for an undetermined space of time, serve as Liverputty's courtesan from Kyoto during the high point of the Heian Court period. Translated by Meredith McKinney.

Godzilla and His Frienemies

Over the past few months I’ve developed a taste for Godzilla pictures, mainly the Showa period up to 1975. I’m no lifelong fan, having only fragmented memories of Godzilla and Mothra on grainy UHF broadcasts, so I learned a lot about the franchise as well as several other daikaiju….and a few things about life along the way:

The Toho franchise is divided into three periods: 1) the Showa Series from 1954 to 1975, 2) the Heisei Series from 1984 to 1995, and 3) the Millennium Series from 1999 to 2004.

The original Godzilla (1954) is a masterpiece - the message, the execution, the characters, the score – it’s all great. There’s nothing campy or silly about it. Even the premise and the pseudo-scientific Oxygen Destroyer® work as well as any sci-fi logic.
And the ominous nature of the beast – totally void of humor or good nature – foot falls like bombs - drives home the seriousness of the picture. It wasn’t till the 60s that the Japanese monster movies started playing for laughs – all the early ones were played straight.

Godzilla wasn’t born, he was hatched.

Rodan wasn’t born either. He was hatched.

Ditto: Mothra.

If you come across an egg the size of a bus, DO NOT remove it to Tokyo.

The same thing goes for foot-long Peanuts that talk in unison or any large and mysterious lizard-like creatures you might come across in a volcano.

If your commuter train or your tank looks like a model, then you’ve had it!

It doesn’t matter what year it is, Godzilla is still a man in a suit. At this stage of my learning at the Geek College of Netflix U (Go Anti-Socials!), I’m unaware of any Godzilla that is not a man in a suit, except a recent cartoon I have not seen. The series has a devoted adherence to the suit, which I think is good for the franchise, though I say that with hesitation, being almost totally ignorant of the later pictures.

After watching The Creature from 20,000 Fathoms, which was the Harryhausen picture made the year before Godzilla, I wondered: what is it that Godzilla has that The Creature… does not? Both are good movies and Harryhausen’s effects, as always, are special. But The Creature… just isn’t as important a movie and could not have launched the same type of franchise as Godzilla. Then the answer came to me: destruction. The Beast leaves a trail of toppled cars and crushed buildings, but not near the scale of Godzilla. The shots of the aftermath of Godzilla’s rampage are horrifying and reflect the total destruction of 1944-45. By comparison, The Beast…is just the story of a giant rhedosaurus who tried to take in the sites of Manhattan one day and ended up getting shot at Coney Island. Happens all the time. Such a story might make the papers on page 18A, but after Godzilla’s rampage there are no papers, not in Tokyo, anyway.

The British daikaiju, Gorgo, leaves a destructive wake in London more similar to Godzilla, but even that wake isn’t as horrifying. It’s interesting to see that the British film focused on the rushing masses going underground to avoid the destruction, which fits the images one often sees of the Blitz.

Mothra is a Grade A monster flick with a maternal twist.

Oh, caring Mothra,
Your wafting wings have destroyed
the fishing village.

The Peanuts, who played the 14” twins in the Mothra pictures, were popular before, though when I asked my resident authority on all things Japanese (Lady T____) she recognized them as made famous by one of the daikaiju, she wasn't sure which. To be fair, The Peanuts were well before her time, and she did recognize the ditty “Mossura”.

It’s bad to keep girl twins locked up for your own profit and amusement, especially if they are 14 inches tall. You know it. Now don’t do it. It’s wrong.

In Mothra vs. Godzilla and Ghidorha, the Three-Headed Monster, the twins are dressed in the latest Tokyo fashions, complete with purses. That leaves open several questions: What do they put in those purses? Would they have had a difficult time at the currency exchange counter at Haneda Airport? What is the exchange rate between the yen and the Infant Island dinar? Does their fingernail polish ball up in normal sized droplets or are those droplets really small? If they are so small, wouldn’t they want tennis shoes instead of heels because they are already at a disadvantage mobility-wise? Many real-life Japanese girls have a hard time finding clothes their size in American stores – being more petite and all – do these miniature twins have a similar problem in Japan?

The case which the twins are transported in….is it padded? Do they strap themselves into seats for safety?

Godzilla hates Mothra and Mothra’s egg with a passion. Come to think of it, Godzilla seems to be threatened by anything bigger than three stories. He’ll emerge from the sea to confront any giant – King Kong, Rodan, Ghidorah, Mothra, those giant insects in Son of Godzilla, etc. He doesn’t care for people either and would just as soon step on them as to argue with them. He's not the type of character who sports a misspelled “co-exist” sticker on his terraplane.

Godzilla is a tail dragger.

Godzilla didn’t make the transition to being a good guy until his fifth picture, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964), and even then he was a reluctant hero. The conversation between Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra, as translated by the twins from Infant Island, reveals Godzilla’s worldview as eloquently as anything.

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster is my favorite of the series. It’s funny, looks great and has the optimal monster-to-minute ratio.

The atomic bomb metaphor is often brought up with the first Godzilla, and rightfully so. Ishiro Honda’s anti-nuclear pacifism is well known and often finds its way into his films. But I believe the metaphor can be deepened and applied throughout the Showa series. Like the bomb, Godzilla starts out by annihilating Japanese cities, but eventually he became a protector of Japan, much like the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

If you broaden the metaphor to include nuclear energy, then Godzilla fights off the Smog Monster (Hedorah) like Japanese nuclear energy helped offset air pollution of coal and oil.

It’s seductive to go overboard with the Japanese nuclear experience/hang-ups contributing to the creation of the monsters, but, for perspective’s sake, it’s relevant to point out that the rhedosaurus in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was the product of nuclear explosions, as was the British Gorgo. Also, it is curious to note that in the American version of Rodan! The Flying Monster stock footage is added showing nuclear complicity in pushing the larva creatures to the surface, yet in the Japanese version no mention is made to nuclear testing. The Japanese version holds natural tectonic shifts in the Earth’s crust accountable for allowing the larvae to emerge and greedy coal mining companies for digging too deep as an explanation for Rodan’s appearance. By adding the nuclear element, the American version convolutes things without adding any plausibility to the story.

By my calculations, Godzilla starts flying in 1971 (Godzilla vs. Hedorah). It’s not very convincing. He curls his body and tail and looks a little like a sea-horse. The amount of atomic thrust from his mouth and the vectoring of it hardly seems sufficient to lift his massive bulk of prehistoric meat off the ground, yet that’s what he does in order to catch up to the Smog Monster. I prefer my Godzilla to be flightless. Whether he’s traveling along the bottom of the bay or over traversing Tokyo, he should be taking the shoe-leather express.

Rodan is a bird like creature capable of supersonic flight. I could not account for the jet propulsion sound effects. Where are his engines? I hate to cry foul on the logic of these films, but come on!

Some of the early scenes in Rodan! The Flying Monster depicting the miners remind me a little of Ishiro Honda’s friend, Akira Kurosawa, as well as their American predecessor, John Ford – mainly in terms of composition in shots, but also in depicting the plight of victims. The scenes of grieving widows and survivors were no doubt familiar to the Japanese in the 1950s.

Angurius is the first monster Godzilla fought, in Godzilla Raids Again (1955). They battled twice. Afterwards, Godzilla retired from the movies until August of 1962, when he returned to the set and did King Kong vs. Godzilla. Angurius teamed up Godzilla and Mothra to battle Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster in December of 1964. Ever since Angurius has been an ally of Godzilla. Anugurius is a born sidekick – smaller, doesn’t quite have what it takes to carry a film on his own, no back-story to speak of, but he’s good to have along on an all monster combat excursion. I’m guessing he packs the lunches and stocks the cooler full of beer and soda for the gang. He gets tossed around a lot.

You never know if an erupting volcano will kill or energize a giant monster, just like you never know if a hastily erected high-voltage fence will hurt or feed one. Godzilla seems to be annoyed by electricity, though in his fight against Mechagodzilla lightning bolts somehow gave him an added power and a magnetic quality. The Gargantuas (Gaira and Sanda) are hurt by electricity, too. But high voltage makes King Kong stronger. So read the hazard alerts for the particular monster you are dealing with AND NEVER THROW FIRE AT GAMERA! That terrapin would be a ruthless judge at a chili cook-off.

In regards to leading daikaiju, one of two things bring them forth: 1) nuclear testing (the rhedosaurus in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Godzilla, Rodan [in American version, but not the Japanese version (see above)], Gamera, and Gorgo), and 2) some crime, usually an abduction, as in Gappa or Mothra, but sometimes with old fashion oppression, as in Daimajin 1, 2 & 3.

Non-leading daikaiju – bad guy creatures like Ghidorah, Hedorah, Gigan or Mechagodzilla – monsters that may have their name in a title but never carry the weight of the whole picture – come from other places: pollution, aliens, some guy’s garage.

I keep forgetting that there are really two Godzillas. (SPOILER) The first one was thoroughly destroyed by Dr. Serizawa’s Oxygen Destroyer®. Unfortunately, so was Dr. Serizawa. He was so horrified at the weapon he had created that he insisted he administer the weapon personally to Godzilla, insuring his own destruction and forever hiding the secret of the Oxygen Destroyer® in the process. He thought he was doing the only noble and good thing possible, but, thanks to Serizawa’s good intentions, Japan and the world have no way of killing the second Godzilla, who, within 6 months of the destruction of Tokyo, wipes out Osaka, or any of the other giant monsters that plagued Japan in the 60s and 70s up to today. Presumably, this second Godzilla is in the remainder of his films.

Godzilla suits are like Benji dogs: there are more than you might expect.

When I see Godzilla’s eyes, I’m often reminded of my late cat. You never know how smart Godzilla is just by looking at him (though a scientist in King Kong vs. Godzilla shows a revealing comparison between Godzilla’s pea-sized noodle and Kong's massive brain), but you know when Godzilla is aggravated. My cat, Copernicus, was the same way. Not to mention that they both had similar girthy builds and were pretty clumsy. My cat would constantly knock over table lamps and picture frames with his tail like Godzilla would topple hotels and government buildings with his. I bet if you held Godzilla upside down and dropped him, he would not land on his feet. Neither would Copernicus! The similarities go on and on.

In Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, Godzilla is found in the cave on the side of a volcano – half buried in the mud like the Frankenstein monster in Son of Frankenstein.

When I first saw Godzilla’s kid, Minilla, in Son of Godzilla, I thought: ‘Godzilla…buddy…I hate to tell you this…buddy…but that’s not your son.’ But I kept my mouth shut.

Atragon has one of the best animated monsters Toho ever filmed with the underwater sea serpent/dragon.

The chief alien in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) is a shape shifting villain, yet he cannot remedy the discoloration of his face? Or does he call that a beauty splotch?

The aliens in that film aren’t so superior in intelligence, either. They built Mechagodzilla, but needed a earthling to repair him.

There a parallels between Toho (Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, etc.) and Daiei (Gamera, Daimaijin): In 1954 Toho essentially created a special effects department from scratch to handle the new genre, then upon the immediate success of Godzilla quickly followed up with a sequel six months later. In 1965 Daiei studios created their effects department almost from scratch to make the first Gamera. After its success, they followed it up with a quickie sequel six months later. I have to give the nod to Toho’s effects team, over Daiei, particularly in regards to the suits and puppets. Gamera never looked animated to me. But both studios put together a lot of great effects, including good model buildings, mat paintings and careful work with water.

Gamera is a mammoth chelonian.

Gamera’s shriek is more hysterical and funny than Godzilla’s siren roar.

A turtle that walks on its hind legs? Sure. I’m not saying that if I came across a real life Gamera I would resist the urge to soil my pants, but I am saying that, on film, Gamera lacks terror. And look! Now he has saved a boy! That can only hurt his daikaiju reputation. Who does he think he is, Mothra?

And he flies? I agreed with the “expert” in the first film when, after the military managed to knock Gamera on his back, he said they had nothing to worry about because, once on its back shell, a turtle can’t right itself. Then Gamera retreats into his shell and out comes the thrusters. But the flames shot outward, not downward, so how could he achieve lift? Nobody sought to figure that out.

Gamera has one of the best and funniest endings of all the giant monster films.

“We have to strike the monster [Barugon] from outside the range of its tongue’s attack.” I’ve often thought this same thing regarding Gene Simmons.

That’s all for now, until I get the gumption to tackle the Heisei series.

Kanazawa

During a recent trip to Japan, Lady T____ and I toured Kanazawa, a town of about 450,000 in Ishikawa Prefecture, a peninsula jetting out into the Sea of Japan.
We took the bullet train (aka shinkansen) from Omiya to Echigo-Yuzawa, a little over halfway across Honshu, well in the mountains and not too terribly far from Nagano, as the crow flies. That took only about 30 minutes. Be forewarned, if you ever take the shinkansen from Omiya and window gazing is at all important to you, be sure to get your seat on the upper level, as cement barriers along the tracks block most of the view for those on the lower level. On the way back, we were on the upper level and enjoyed an impressive nighttime view as the shinkansen sped along past the miniature buildings of the Kanto plain. The view from the traditional JR line during that two and half hour leg of the trip was more noteworthy, especially in the mountains. Though there were plenty of industrial scenes for each town, there were also plenty of picturesque views of country living - rice paddies and farm houses, country roads, etc., as the photos show. At some point, we reached the coast and followed it down for about an hour. The view became somewhat monotonous, ocean on one side, verdant mountain inclines on the other. For much of way I noticed a shinkansen line under construction, apparently connecting Echigo-Yuzawa. It seemed about halfway complete.
The historic areas of Kanazawa were in one part of the town and to get there, the train traversed some significant urban sprawl, though nothing compared to that of Tokyo or Osaka, before reaching the artistically conscious Hokutetsu-Kanazawa Station conveniently located at one end of the Kenrokuen Shuttle Bus loop, the tourist part of the city snuggled up the mountains. The buses on the Kenrokuen Loop can take you to pretty much all the sites within minutes. The name, Kenrokuen, refers to the most prominent point on the loop, a large garden considered to be one of the top three in all of Japan.

Kanazawa is notable because it is the second largest city in Japan (behind Kyoto) that was not bombed by us during the war, which means that it has several prewar historic sites intact. First and foremost, in my mind, was Nagamachi, an old neighborhood for the samurai class that offered several varying historic sites including a museum dedicated to the ruling Maeda family, a restored home of the upper-class samurai family, Nomura, and some reconstructed homes of the ashigaru, the foot soldier class. It was an interesting district. The highlight being the home of the Nomura clan, which had an ideal garden (shown) for a back yard. The tea room on the second floor opened up to the same garden from atop the trees. It was an ideal place to relax. Although the weather on the day of our visit was rainy and muggy, the small tea room invited a pleasent breeze that made it cool and refreshing.

The Maeda Tosanokami-ke Shiryokan Museum, dedicated to the ruling Maeda family, offered some scrolls and record books going make to the late 1700 and early 1800s, but was scarce on artifacts and offered little in the way of English translations. The latter seemed odd to me, as I'd heard this area was popular among the gaijin living in Tokyo. I did notice that the the museum was currently working to remedy that. They provided me with a headset for translations, though only a portion of the tour was translated. The most enlightening portion of the Maeda museum was the video explain how the historic town was zoned by class. Also, there was an impressive suit of armor on display.

The tea-house district makes for an enjoyable stroll, though we did not have the necessary time to explore the interior of several of its homes and shops. We did, however, enjoy some green tea ice cream served up with some mochi balls and sweet bean.

Kenrokuen Garden sits on some high ground, the summit of Yamazaki yama overlooking a swath of the city neighborhoods. The garden dates back to the 17th century and went through a variety of manifestations before it was opened to the public in 1874. If you enjoy waterfalls, groomed trees, coy ponds and a variety of flora and fauna, then this place is not to be missed. The descriptions in brochures almost always mention that Kenrokuen Garden is one of the top three gardens in Japan - which is pretty high praise indeed.

Across the street from the garden is the Kanazawa Castle. Unfortunately, time restraints prevented us from exploring it, though we managed to observe it from the outside. The history of the castle is a series of fires and rebuilding. In 2001, much of the castle was rebuilt to its early 19th century manifestation.

I would not be fulfilling my blog duties if I failed to mention the Omicho fish market. Most of our meals were eaten there. It was a little more bustling than the Nijo Fish Market in Sapporo (Nijo offered great crabs and plenty of good sashimi - perhaps I was just there off-season), and a little less bustling than the incomparable Makishi Market in Naha, Okinawa. Still, it was a splendid place to view fish and fruits. The sushi was most excellent.

Had time permitted, there were many other things to do in Kanazawa, including a contemporary art museum, Ninjadera, and the Oyama Shrine...not to mention the sites along the Ishikawa peninsula coast.

The next portion of our trip brought us to the small hot springs town of Kaga, but that's a post to itself.

Grasses of Idleness #55

from Kenko
"A house should be built with the summer in mind. In winter it is possible to live anywhere, but a badly made house is unbearable when it gets hot.

There is nothing cool-looking about deep water; a shallow, flowing stream is far cooler. When you are reading fine print you will find that a room with sliding doors is lighter than one with hinged shutters. A room with a high ceiling is cold in winter and dark by lamplight. People agree that a house which has plenty of spare room is attractive to look at and may be put to many different uses."

Grasses of Idleness #71

from Kenko
"As soon as I hear a name I feel convinced I can guess what the owner looks like, but it never happens, when I actually meet the man, that his face is as I had supposed. I wonder if everybody shares my experience of feeling, when I hear some story about the past, that the house mentioned in the story must have been rather like this or that house belonging to people of today, or that the persons of the story resemble people I see now.

It has happened on various occasions too that I have felt, just after someone has said something or I have seen something or thought of something, that it has occurred before. I cannot remember when it was, but I feel absolutely certain that the thing has happened. Am I the only one who has such impressions?"

Grasses of Idleness #82

by Kenko
"Someone once remarked that thin silk was not satisfactory as a scroll wrapping because it was so easily torn. Tona replied, "It is only after the silk wrapper has frayed at top and bottom, and the mother-of-pearl has fallen from the roller that a scroll looks beautiful." This opinion demonstrated the excellent taste of the man. People often say that a set of books looks ugly if all volumes are not in the same format, but I was impressed to hear the Abbot Koyu say, "It is typical of the unintelligent man to insist on assembling complete sets of everything. Imperfect sets are better."

In everything, no matter what it may be, uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives one the feeling that there is room for growth. Someone once told me, "Even when building the imperial palace, they always leave one place unfinished." In both Buddhist and Confucian writings of the philosophers of former times, there are also many missing chapters."

Grasses of Idleness #25

from the Buddhist priest, Kenko:"The world is as unstable as the pools and shallows of Asuka River. Times change and things disappear: joy and sorrow come and go; a place that once thrived turns into uninhabited moor; a house may remain unaltered, but its occupants will have changed. The peach and the damson trees in the garden say nothing - with whom is one to reminisce about the past? I feel this sense of impermanence even more sharply when I see the remains of a house which long ago, before I knew it, must have been imposing."
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A note on Kenko: Yoshida Kenko is a priest of the Zen sect. He wrote Grasses of Idleness (AKA Essays of Idleness) from 1330-1332, during the very end of the Kamakura shogunate under the Hojo Regents, marking the transition from a patrician to a feudal culture (according to George Sansom's Japan: A Short Cultural History). He will, for an undetermined space of time, serve as Liverputty's man outside of the court intrigue of Kyoto.

Pappy Boyington as a prisoner towards the end of the war

Another, possibly the last, installment (pgs 289-290) from Baa Baa Black Sheep - though there are plenty of other excerpts worthy of posting. In this episode Boyington has been a prisoner for about a year (January 1945). The first significant air raids over the Tokyo Bay area have just begun with a carrier based strike. Ofuna, the interrogation camp where Boyington is stationed, is about 10 miles from Yokosuka:

After the New Year’s incident [see book for details – ed.] life seemed to go on much the same as before until the latter part of February 1945. Then all hell appeared to break loose over our peaceful country valley. It all started by hearing the distant wail of air-raid sirens, which we prisoners paid no attention to because we hadn’t dreamed this could be anything but a drill. But in a matter of some twenty everybody in Japan came to the realization that this was no drill. Just twelve miles from our camp the large Jap naval base of Yokosuka was taking a thumping something terrific.

Dive bomber after dive bomber started down, the hills between the target area and our camp momentarily chopping each bomber from view, making it appear as though they were diving into the hills. But in a few seconds we saw them pull out about the same time we heard the ka-lumph of the exploding bomb. Even at this distance the noise from so many engines sounded much the same as a gigantic waterfall – a steady roar. Obviously this was not a moral strike like the Doolittle raid; this was concentrated, and we knew that this carrier raid was the beginning of the end for Japan.

Prisoners were ordered by the guards to go to their cells, and to keep away from the windows or they would be beaten. This order was analogous to asking a person to stop breathing, one can stand it only so long. None of the guards bothered me, as I was in the kitchen, and I was able to get an eyeful.

What a sight, I thought, as I saw a Zero scooting low along the hilltops directly over our camp, being chased by a Navy F6F. An old familiar feeling came over me, causing a tingling to run through my body, as I watched the F6F pour his .50-caliber machine guns into the hapless Zero, which belched flame and crashed into the hillside as the F6F pulled skyward. I knew he was looking for new prey, for I felt close enough to the action, while standing there on the ground, almost to feel that I was thinking for that Navy F6F pilot.

I was thrilled by the sights of two more shootdowns before one of the guards shooed me inside through the back door of the kitchen. As much as I wanted to remain and continue watching, I had seen enough, so I didn’t mind.

Curly, the cook, was frightened half to death, and he was pleading: “What is the best thing to do? Where is the safest place?”

“Flat on your belly is the safest place I know of.” I tried to console this excited and frightened man. Curly must have taken me as an authority when I spoke, for he was flat on his face before I had finished.

After the racket had subsided and nothing was visible but a huge column of smoke rising behind the hills in the direction of Yokosuka, Curly looked up from the deck like a little child and said: “Is it all right to stand up now, Major?” And this was the first, last, and only time the little cook ever addressed me by my rank.