The Naked Blood of the Cherry Blossoms Read online

  The naked blood of the cherry blossoms

  A defeated soldier battles the Yakuza

  Kano Ishikawa

  Copyright © 2018 Kano Ishikawa

  All rights reserved.

  Author’s note

  The Naked Blood of the Cherry Blossoms is a historical novel based on news reports, old photographs and eye witness statements. The rampant black markets, riots, opening and closure of Korean-Japanese schools, the Recreation Amusement Association, and the American officer’s club in Shioya are historically accurate.

  I have made some slight changes to dates and locations to fit the story.

  Whilst the characters' names are fictional and not based on any person living or dead, Sakamoto is the exception. Historical records attest to a returning soldier who founded a vigilante group fighting the Yakuza and other criminal elements in the Osaka black markets.

  the return

  December 1945

  Sakamoto shivered in the chill dawn. For the first time in three years the weather was at the root of his shivers, not fear, worry or stress.

  He lay on his bunk in the Takasago Maru, and pulled his overcoat up to his neck. Listening to the dull and monotonous thud of the ship’s engines, he closed his eyes and was trying to rest.

  Three days earlier, his ship had sailed from Manila and had immediately turned North. Intended as a hospital ship, the 9,300 ton Takasago Maru was now a troop vessel. Full of defeated Japanese soldiers, the ship headed to Osaka, Japan. There the soldiers would go back to civilian life.

  Sakamoto had spent the last three years in the Philippines. At the end of hostilities, he was a Captain in the 35th Imperial Army. He used to be a proud, resolute and determined servant of the Emperor. Now he was a jaded stub of the young and enthusiastic officer who had left a euphoric and war thirsty Japan in 1942.

  Following the American assault on Leyte, he had seen unforgettable trauma. There had been innumerable casualties, most to fighting. In addition, broken supply lines left men foraging for food. Many more succumbed to starvation and dysentery. The tropical heat and humidity continuously sapped away at a man’s endurance. Insects, leeches and lice were equally vicious killers.

  Their surrender was never imagined. Sakamoto lost countless friends, comrades and subordinates, he felt haunted, bewildered and nauseous.

  He had killed too, stabbing men in face to face combat. At night, if he was lucky enough to find sleep, he would suddenly jerk awake, fearing he couldn’t withdraw his bayonet. He developed unrestrained twitches in his facial muscles.

  Three months since the end of hostilities, the anxieties and fears of battle, and vanquished honour still gnawed away. Despite being famished, he frequently lost his appetite.

  He had not come across any familiar faces in the POW camp, nor on the Takasago Maru. He kept to himself. He simply nodded automatically to others in the food lines or whilst they waited to use the latrines. Sakamoto had developed a stammer and had difficulty engaging in meaningful conversations.

  Sakamoto was a short man, still under nourished and weakened from his combat diet. He had survived on coconuts, bananas, and meagre quantities of rice. There was the rare luxury of cow meat, plundered from local farmers. Even after capture there was limited improvement. The victors were not magnanimous in their treatment of “Japs” as they were labelled. He suffered frequent bouts of diarrhoea. And he had been further debilitated by an unknown tropical disease. It caused severe headaches and pain behind his eyes. Sakamoto shivered again as the ship forged its way into the North Pacific, leaving the tropics for Japan’s winter climes.

  Two days later, the Takasago Maru entered the Kiisuido strait, and passed to the left of Okinoshima island into Osaka’s vast, but sheltered, bay.

  A cold northerly wind was blowing with scattered thin and grey clouds. It was morning and Sakamoto came up from below onto the deck. Like many of the repatriates, he was desperate to see his homeland again.

  All the men toyed with their own thoughts of what the future held.

  Awaji island stood out dark to the left with her mountain peaks jutting into the clouds. Further on lay the Awaji strait with the funnels of a steamboat just visible on the thin horizon. There were a few dim lights visible on the shoreline.

  Sakamoto was wearing his military uniform. Like all the repatriates they had no other clothes. It was drab olive. His boots were leather and there were brown puttees wrapping his lower legs. His leather belt and straps remained. His officer’s sword long since gone. On the shoulders of his tunic, the once bright red and yellow striped labels, with the Captain’s three stars, were still visible. Yet they were scuffed and faded.

  He wore a thick, heavy wool overcoat that had been passed to the repatriates on boarding. On his head, he wore a cap, cut in the same olive. It had a single star on its front, and did not cover his ears. In the cutting wind, it offered consolatory protection only.

  It took at least two hours to arrive at Sakai at the Northern-Eastern end of the bay. They passed through some small fishing boats on the way and had waved to the fishermen. Some even tried shouting a greeting in the wind.

  For some reason their gestures were not acknowledged.

  Around midday, the Takasago Maru slowed to a halt. The anchor dropped and the ship swung head into the wind, and lay moored several hundred metres off shore.

  Sakai used to be a proud and frenetic port at the mouth of Osaka’s Yamato river. It was clear to Sakamoto it had brooked untold damage, destruction and near annihilation from American bombs. In one direction, he could see several half sunken vessels. Their prows or sterns protruding at ugly angles from the darkened water. The wharves had been reshaped into chunks of broken concrete and metal pillars. There were few standing or undamaged buildings. Most were shells of smashed and charred brick.

  Behind the harbour, the land was flat, dark brown and dusty from the devastation. Where before there had been countless streets with wooden buildings, only the thoroughfares remained.

  A few figures, some pushing make-shift carts could be observed in the afternoon sunlight. Sakamoto stopped one of the scurrying deckhands and politely asked what had happened.

  “Don't you know?” came an angry reply. “They bombed Osaka, they deliberately set fire to the city!"

  After a while the ship’s crew lowered a heavy grade cargo net and rope ladders down the starboard side. Over the tannoy, a voice ordered repatriates to gather their belongings and get ready to disembark. Sakamoto watched an open deck tender come out of the rubble. It was wooden and powered by a sputtering motor. Old tyres adorned its hull, slowly it came alongside the Takasago Maru.

  It was dusk on the following day by the time Sakamoto finally stood on Japanese soil again. On shore the repatriates lined up and each was unceremoniously greeted by customs officials. They were looking for contraband and weapons. Then a nurse and assistant, their faces covered with masks, proceeded to delouse each soldier with a tube smoking fumes. It was thrust under each man’s armpits, down his back and for those had one, inside their kit bags.

  The repatriates were later moved to a nearby camp. Under large communal tents, they drank a watery soup and a small bowl of rice. They were ordered to prepare for the demobbing procedures which started in the morning. Some huddled together in small groups around small fires.

  Others, who carried ashes of fallen comrades, visited a simple shrine in one corner of the camp. Most found sleep elusive.

  The following morning, Sakamoto was demobbed from the once vaunted Imperial Army. He received a plain document, paper chopped and a receipt for back pay, and headed into Osaka. There had been no ceremony or speeches, no salutes, handshakes or
bows. There was no mention or remembrance for fallen comrades; no one cared.

  Although he was a native of Kansai, the region encompassing Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, Sakamoto barely recognised the landscape. The once energetic and merchant capital had been levelled flat. It was a desolate desert of spotty bomb craters, eerie ruins and charred soil. Here and there, a lone building stood out intact, somehow spared from the onslaught.

  Where before the war there had been brick and wooden houses, huts and sheds, now people were living rough. They inhabited make-shift dug outs and flimsy shacks. The most common were crude shelters erected from two or three pieces of brown tarpaulin. Sakamoto mainly saw women and younger children. Some were busy cooking outside or hanging washing. Others were picking through the rubble. Most had cleared spots to plant vegetables. Sakamoto didn’t see many men.

  Only the railway stations bore some guise of familiarity. It was attributable simply to their names. They were painted on wood, in black using Kanji and Katakana characters plus English, for the benefit of the occupation forces. Almost all of the station buildings Sakamoto saw were severely damaged.

  However, repairing the tracks was one of first priorities for the new government, they were not damaged.

  In the carnage the stations had become oases of humanity and bartering hubs. There were swirling crowds and temporary stalls displaying an unkempt range of household goods. Sakamoto spotted hessian sacks of foodstuffs, old military clothing and bedding for sale.

  Sakamoto’s train took him first to Osaka Umeda where he changed and then headed west towards Kobe. The journey was slow. The train stopped at every station, crawling over weakened or recently shored up bridges. There was not any room to sit. All the repatriates looked aghast at the marred scenery. They had not been told about the severity of the attacks.

  In Kobe Sakamoto walked along the Nakayamate dori street looking for his parent’s house. Like Sakai and the western areas of Osaka, besides the road, it was unrecognisable. There had been indiscriminate bombing. The resulting fire storms had swept through the tightly packed neighbourhoods. Houses and hovels built from paper thin wood would have ignited instantaneously.

  Only the steep hills to Sakamoto’s right, dark, brown and brooding in the bare winter were untouched.

  His parent’s residence was nothing more, just a jumbled array of smashed brick, rubble and burnt embers. A few weeds had sprung up limply and moved quietly in the wind. Palpitating dread swelled from within and he stood silently, alone in thought, distraught, shaken and lost.

  Sakamoto last received a letter from his mother over twelve months ago. It was common in the war, especially given his erratic movements in the Philippines. He had not worried unduly. A memory of his elder brother who had been declared missed in Guadalcanal in 1943, flashed across his mind.

  “What are you looking for?” Sakamoto turned and saw an older woman. She was wearing a thick and shabby fur hat. She leant forward, pushing a wooden cart.

  “Sakamoto-san’s house...” he stuttered and started again.

  “Excuse me,” he bowed slightly. “I’m Haruto Sakamoto,” he spoke carefully trying not to stammer. “This is where my parents lived.”

  She stared at him, started shaking her head and slowly muttered an old saying to herself, “one life, one encounter.”

  She paused and spoke to Sakamoto, “they were lost in the June bombing.” Looking up, she moved her arm in an arc pointing at the rubble, “like so many people here.”

  Sakamoto felt sick. His dread had become reality. He felt a spasm in his cheeks.

  “Where were you?” she asked.

  “I was overseas,” he said quietly, “fighting for the Emperor, for Japan.”

  “I see,” she looked him straight in the eyes. “One of our defeated soldiers,” she paused. “Isn’t the spirit of Japan to die the way the cherry blossoms go, without shame?”

  Rokko Garden

  January 1946

  Ever since Mi-Chan Taegi could remember, New Year, Shogatsu, had been unique. At midnight temples rang bells, their rhythmic dongs chanting into the deep night. Far flung families returned home. Friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues exchanged ritual cards. And there was an unwavering selection of dried and preserved food.

  It was one of the rare times Mi-Chan could recall her father offering sake, which he served at day break to herald the New Year. Shogatsu was the time when Japan, always on the move, stopped and paused for reflection.

  Mi-Chan’s family came from Korea, where New Year or Seol, was celebrated with equal reverence and dedication. The family enjoyed several ancestral Korean dishes, cooked by their devoted mother. She prepared soup with sliced rice cake, or Jeon a savoury pancake. Eaten with chopsticks, they were served alongside Japanese dishes.

  Mi-Chan’s father sought to remind his children of their heritage at New Year. During the latter stages of the war, the family had faced discrimination on account of their nationality. For Mi-Chan and her sister, Eun Ae, their memories of New Year were happy, warm and comforting.

  New Year 1946 was altogether different.

  Mi-Chan’s father was dead, killed in a June bombing raid when fire engulfed his small barber shop in the Chuo Ward. His body had been impossible to identify and he had been buried in a mass grave with countless others. Mi-Chan’s mother, ‘Umma,’ as she was affectionately known by her children, just survived. She suffered scalding third degree burns on her left arm and leg.

  The house which Mr. Taegi had built with his life earnings was burnt down. The family had to live in what remained of the cellar. Due to a shortage of medicine, and their damp and chilly abode, Umma’s recovery was hampered by reoccurring infections. Her injuries were not deemed severe enough to warrant hospitalisation.

  She was also Korean and not integral to the war effort. More than physical wounds, Umma suffered from trauma. She found it hard to sleep and was stressed. Unable to work, the family was reliant upon scant savings and valuables saved from the debris.

  All the Taegi’s remaining neighbours were in similar predicaments. Their emotions and nerves were eroded and destroyed by war. By ‘enduring the unendurable’ as the Emperor memorably uttered in his August surrender speech.

  There was a short lived explosion of euphoria, and relief of survival after the surrender. They then dropped deep again into a trench of hardship, poverty and depression. It exacerbated as autumn rolled into the short and dark days of winter. They were ‘suffering what is unsufferable.’

  New Year 1946 started with a collective despondency.

  Early in January, Mi-Chan was at Sannomiya station in Kobe. She was searching through an eclectic array of temporary stalls, tables and trestles. There were food stuffs, bric-a-brac, old military clothing and assorted household paraphernalia. It was known as the Yam’ichi or dark market.

  Although the population received ration cards, supplies were inconsistent and volume small. So most had no option but to barter belongings or raid scarce savings to buy food. Such was the paucity that every piece of cloth, cutlery, even old vegetables had value. Prices were hand-written on scraps of cardboard. For necessities like rice, sugar or sweet potatoes, buyers and vendors haggled depending on quality and quantity.

  Crowds quickly formed when vendors brought out new goods or produce. Some pressing up close in anticipation. Others in anxious desperation.

  Trains arriving from Akashi occasionally disgorged passengers carrying produce. They had been into the countryside looking for crops to hawk in the Yam’ichi.

  Whilst Mi-Chan was searching for flour near the station entrance, she saw a large signboard and its headline caught her eye.

  “Women of New Japan,” it shouted. “As part of the post-war revival, we are seeking the active cooperation of new Japanese women. The great task is comforting the occupation force. There are openings for singers, musicians, hostesses, and entertainers. Applications sought from those aged between eighteen and twenty-five. Housing, clothing, and food supplied.
”

  As she stood reading it again, a policeman approached her, out of the crowd.

  Mi-Chan was nineteen, slim and pretty with dark eyes, high cheekbones and long black hair tied with some old elastic. She wore a long dark skirt and a thick but old overcoat.

  “Good morning,” he said, bowing. “Are you interested?” he asked politely.

  Mi-Chan hesitated, then nodded, “What is it about please?”

  “It is a government run and controlled organisation. Its name is the Recreation and Amusement Association.” He paused, “it is an official body, where decent, honourable and patriotic women, entertain the occupation military.”

  The policeman smiled at her. He continued, “times are very difficult now,” gesturing at the market and then glancing at her run down clothing. “It is an opportunity to earn good money, get proper food and shelter.”

  Mi-Chan looked at him startled, and thought of her mother.

  “If you come with me to the Koban I will explain further.”

  The Koban was a neighbourhood police station found across Japan. They were around two or three tsubo in size and built on a concrete base with pale clay brick and a flat roof. The bombing had obliterated most, so in the immediate post-war aftermath, simple wooden Koban sprang up. They were sited on major street corners and railway stations. The Koban oversaw the local populace and operated as a base for patrols.

  Mi-Chan was offered a seat and the policeman sat behind a simple wooden desk. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a piece of paper which he glanced at before speaking.

  “Our leaders have announced that the Japanese people have a duty to promote a mutual understanding with the Allied forces. We have to contribute to the rebuilding of Japan, and the construction of a peaceful environment.” He went on, reading from the paper. “We are not flattering the occupation forces. We are not compromising our integrity or selling our souls. We are paying an inescapable courtesy and serving the Emperor.”