Welcome to Blue Garden
I dedicate this blog to two old men who are haunting my mind many many years. They are the “ghosts” of WW2 pilots both of whom died in the war. They are a Japanese suicide pilot and an American P-38 pilot.
Here is a little bit of the background about them and how I came to know them:
The Japanese flyer, Lt. Toru Hirano (posthumously promoted to C0l.), was a Kamikaze pilot. A day before he went on a suicide attack mission, he was given some hours on leave. He spent those hours to visit the clock tower of the high school he had attended before advancing to the Naval Academy. He wrote a message with a lead pencil on a wall there.
Years later, I attended the same high school and came to know of the writing. It was all smeared but I managed to recover enough characters to find out who that pilot could have been.
“I was given life in this world, and I am to die tomorrow,” his words were read.
“I thought of where I would most want to spend the last hours of my life, and I felt this is the place I most wanted to come… The Naval Academy… Toru…”
He was one of thousands young men who died like that.
As the years have gone by since I saw the writing, the story about him has stuck to my mind more and more strongly. I now even dream of him. In the dream, sometimes I am piloting the fighter plane. I can feel the control stick in my own right hand and I am about to hit an American warship in the Pacific. I hear his voice ringing in my ear.
I will write out his words as I hear in the dream in a poem form when my poetic skill is developed good enough. But for now:
An old man stood on a beach
Leaning on his cane, he squinted to the sky
A seagull flies across the blue
Like a fighter plane he once piloted
Tears well up in his eyes
About the American P-38 pilot: He is Lt. Carl Hoenshell, who went missing in Europe during the war in 1944, shortly before Toru was registered as dead.
The remains of Lt. Hoenshell were discovered in a rural area in Bulgaria almost 60 years later in 2002 by search efforts led by his niece and nephews. They were brought home to his home town of Owosso in Michigan to be laid beside his mother in a cemetery there in a full military service burial with fly-bys. The entire town observed the occasion.
However, I knew something more about the entire story of Lt. Hoenshell than anyone who attended the service, because Carl’s mother was at one time my landlord when I studied in the United States 50 years ago.
I used the room that Lt. Hoenshell had used, slept on the bed he had slept and put my clothes in the drawers that had belonged to him.
Mrs. Hoenshell, talked about her “Carlie” to me almost every evening while I was staying at her house for about a year.
She accepted everything her relatives, friends and the government agency told her that her Carlie would never return home. But, deep down, she never gave up her belief that Carlie would some day come back. She showed me some of the stuff she was secretly preparing for a “welcome home dinner” she was to serve when her son came back. One of the stuff was a white tablecloth she was knitting.
She told me about Carlie so much that I began to visualize him as my own brother. Mrs. Hoenshell also told me some strange, even ghostly, stories. I clearly remember her facial expression when she was telling me of such stories. She smiled and often turned to extreme anger.
As the years have gone by since those days, her face with a smile and simultaneous extreme anger began to float in my mind more and more vividly. Sometimes she haunts my mind with Carlie. I want to tell the world about Carlie and his mother as words come up in my mind. But for now:
An old man stopped walking on a sidewalk
A bird darted above his head from behind
He murmurs
All men are born to live in peace for happiness
True destiny
I will also put on this blog haikus I have written in English, together with other poems. Some of my friends who are Japanese literature experts tell me haiku is never possible other than in Japanese. I know what they mean. Haiku may never be understood unless read in the Japanese original. But the five-seven-five is a rhythm natural to human, and I feel a tremendous possibility in poems in that rhythm. We don’t necessarily need haiku’s kigo, kireji, or other traditional rules. Since the haiku poems must be squeezed into such a small number of syllables, we need a special poetic license to write them: the license to kill, to kill the grammar. And, for now:
Whatever language
Say it in five-seven-five rhythm
My heart will follow
I hope many people visit this blog and leave comments. The two WW2 pilots who died are always on my mind.
AshiAkira
This is a beautiful account. I love the poetry that is added. The background information is important. The photo is lovely. Thank you so much for inviting me to you website. Yes, I must have a blog here as well. I just have not visited it for a time. Thank you for reminding me of that. I enjoy your work so much on Twitter. This is an exciting expansion. Good for you.
Thank you Jannagae for the kind remark. I must work some more on this blog before making it public. I hope you will visit here from time to time.
Beautiful ghosts resurrected in blue rhythm. How much are we alike! Carving in hearts, journey within remembrance. Rhyming we remain. Ocean Kiss, Ashi. ()
pencil marks
almost there
from a life
that almost
was
Powerful and moving, AshiAkira. Thank you.
Few aspects of human behavior have such long lasting consequences as war. Conflicts in many parts of the world have roots that go back in time, far back…the events in Bosnia when I was young, for example, reached back to population movements and conquests during the tumult of the Middle Ages. I am astonished to see how many people are still angry about events that happened centuries ago, and how this hatred is constantly replenished by bloodshed.
I worry about war. It has become an obsession of mine of late. When I was recovering recently, the news was full of North Korea’s threats, the conflicts in the Mideast [pick a country], and Africa.
Everywhere, leaders exploit fear for short-term goals to gain a modicum of more power or wealth. They do this without regard for the long-term consequences, acting with an almost sociopathic disregard for the people they are sworn to protect and serve. Perhaps it is because the rest of us have a certain cynicism about our leaders; we have no faith they act in our best interests unless we feel their interests are also threatened.
I don’t know if there is a solution. I worry about righteous anger, about fanaticism (regardless of their cause), and I worry about people forgetting the past. As this WWII generation fades, the voices of the willfully ignorant grow stronger.
Perhaps it’s naïve, but I feel truth…and truth spoken well…can help provide an answer to this. I gave up long ago on the notion that I could change someone’s outlook by arguing louder or longer. Nonetheless, I’ve found many people recognize and respect truthfulness.
They may not accept an answer quickly. Especially one that is contrary to their view of the world. And they rarely accept an idea told to them…they must come to their own conclusions in their own fashion and in their own time.
If, by my words, I can encourage someone else to question, to seek answers, maybe that’s enough. They might draw conclusions that are different from mine…but I am still seeking answers as well. What is important is that we keep asking why.
And nowhere is this more important than in matters of human conflict. We should understand,must understand why we fight. We cannot foresee all of the ramifications for our actions, but we must have some understanding of the magnitude of these consequences.
War is paradoxical. Inherently, it is not only destructive, but immensely creative. We excel at finding new means of inflicting damage upon our enemies, often with results that dramatically affect our peacetime lives for the better. But, I have to wonder…what benefits would we have seen without war? What would these two gifted young men have accomplished if they had lived their natural lifespans? What might their children have done?
I’d like to think, however, that we can temper our destructive impulses…apply that same creative force to understanding and diplomacy, to connecting with other people, to finding answers, exploring the universe, and improving life for all with whom we share this world.
Hiki,
Thank you, Hiki, for the incisive remark.
My head’s haunted by ghosts
I hear
The noise of dragging chains
And groaning
Yearning to get out
One of Carl’s nephews, David, told me a professional American writer had approached him to write a book about the story behind Carl. David turned down the offer and he gave all to me the copies of Carl’s letters, government documents regarding his missing, the records of how Carl’s remains were located and how searches were conducted to retrieve them, etc. David and other relatives of Carl asked me to write a book or something about the incident and what I heard about Carl from his mother. I worked as a news agency reported for 30 years and find it a cinch to write a documentary or something about the incident. But I have a strong feeling that writing a novel or something about Carl’s life would be a disgrace to him. There must be something the ghosts (Carl’s and Toru’s) want me to let out from my head.
Remarkably, Hiki, what you said about the About on my blog paved a way toward the core of what I might want to bring out. But how to bring it out is still in the dark as a different matter. I have been thinking of poetic forms. My hunch tells me the poetry is just the way. But for the poetry, I have to start from the scratch. I know much less about poetic forms.
From the government documents and from what I heard from Carl’s relatives, I can reconstruct how he was flying his P-38 while it was scrambling with German aircrafts in the skies of Bulgaria that day. He once succumbed to the enemy planes and obeyed their order to land. But just a few seconds before touching down the airstrip, Lt. Hoenshell pulled the control stick to open the throttle and flew up. Why did he do that? In my head, the movements of Carl’s hand match what I heard his mother say she told Carlie when he was at home on leave: “Don’t fly fast, Carlie.” Mrs. Hoenshell would tell him, thinking the plane was the same thing as a car – the faster it goes the more dangerous. “Oh, mom, the plane’s different from a car. It would be dangerous if it flies slow,” Carlie would tell his mother. Yes, Lt. Hoenshell speeded up into the air without landing on the strip as ordered by the enemy – this sort of thing can be expressed only by a poem and not by any other form of writing.
Just a few days ago, Carl’s niece and nephew wrote me and they said they liked what I wrote in the About and OK’d the use of the real names on my blog. But I will keep the blog private for some more time. I will try what I think would be poems before I write poems about Lt. Hoenshell and Lt. Hirano.
We had a high school reunion last week and I met a couple of my seniors who attended the school at about the same time as Hirano. Hirano is listed in the defunct Navy Academy’s record as graduated from the academy in March 1944 and died after leaving on a special (suicide attack) mission for the east of Tokyo (Pacific) on Aug. 13, 1945, just two days before Japan’s surrender. But Toru Hirano, in the record of the high school, was listed as graduated from the school in March 1943. This didn’t give him enough time to complete the years at the academy. But my seniors at the reunion told me that some of the “extremely good students” were taken up by the academy even before their official graduation from the high school. They also told me that they remember “a tremendous send off party” the entire school observed for each of the students who could advance to the academy.
I once dreamed of piloting the Zero fighter plane that Toru must have flown on the mission. I could even feel the control stick in my right hand while the plane was flying over the farm fields in the suburbs of Tokyo and then into the sea. I often imagine what Toru was thinking then. Did he really shout, “Long Live the Emperor” as he had been told to say at the time of the suicide attack. My head can’t help denying…
Anyway, thank you again, Hiki, for such a great remark on my About. It really encouraged me and I’m determined stronger to work for the repose of the ghosts who still haunt my head from time to time.
Aki
I love your dedication for two old men..
Thank you sylvie Lesas for the kind remark. I’m meaning to write some poems for the two and then make my blog public. But the progress is very slow.
AshiAkira-san,
Thank you so much for sharing your blog. What you’ve written so far has opened up so many possibilities for discussion on a topic that has become more and more fascinating to me recently – specifically, WW2.
The beginning of your blog is beautiful (the image, too). I completely understand your desire and need to share these men’s stories with the world in an honorable manner. But I wonder, is a novel really a bad idea? You describe flying the plane, being in the men’s heads at the last moments of their lives, with such vividness – I think you would do their stories justice in novel form. It can still be poetic in its own way.
As I mentioned briefly on Twitter the other day, I’m starting to feel a similar pull towards telling true stories from WW2. Being my mother’s child, I think it’s my duty. I used to resist these stories, perhaps sensing my mother’s reluctance to talk about war and bad childhood memories in Okinawa, and also feeling unsure of my own ability to absorb such terrible things. However I think she is more open to talking in her old age, she’s 79 and I would never forgive myself if I don’t document her story before she passes. I know it will be emotional and difficult, but necessary.
There are many others in my family whose lives were impacted by the war, but it’s my next door neighbor, Bill, who has me thinking the most about it through his amazing stories of what he saw and survived. He had so many close calls, in the worst battles, and yet survived, like it was his destiny to live on while thousands died around him. He’s 85 now and won’t be around forever – I feel more urgency about getting the stories down but perhaps like you, I’m uncertain how to put it all together, to do the stories justice. All I know is since meeting Bill I’m often haunted by his account of walking through a concentration camp and seeing bodies piled on top of each other, some still alive. When I asked him, how can you see such nightmarish things and still go on, and have any kind of hope or optimism for humanity? His reply was: because you have to, that’s all. You have no choice, you just go on. He admitted recently, however, that he’s forgotten many things, because his mind just won’t go to those bad memories any more, as if protecting itself. His mind is still very sharp, but he can’t remember actual battles or killing, even when he tries – such is the human mind, I suppose.
Which brings me to the topic of forgetting. Like Hiki wrote, I’m worried people will forget. People now are feeling too complacent and too entitled, too quick to complain. In the States so many of us live with such excess and self-absorption, it’s beyond imagination that people have suffered in such ways, and still suffer in other parts of the world. We have to keep these stories alive, not to dwell in pain from the past, but to remind people how precious life is and how fragile, how easy it is to lose everything from one day to the next. We take too much for granted, most of all each other.
Please continue writing and let us know of your progress. I am so glad to have met you through Twitter! Although oftentimes I admit I feel civilization is doomed, I’m still amazed at how technology can connect people in such immediate ways. Having met so many compassionate, creative spirits on sites such as Twitter really has brought me hope. Ganbatte kudasai! You have my support.
Aki
ah, Ashi … lovely ~ obviously much work since my last visit ~ who of us understands completely the human heart my friend, its depths & dark chill, its sweet charm, its twistings, its knots, its violence, its cruelty, its deceitfulness … ah, its singular vulnerability ~ the more i know of myself the more these ugly faces have haunted me, the more i have come to realize my own fear ~ that i might i too might be seized and imprisoned eternally within them.
Let us never forget the “bitter truth” of what humanity be capable of ~ for only then shall we come to realize the truth of vulnerability. Nothing, no evil belongs to one people ~ to a person ~ but to the human heart ~ let us tend well then the soil of our own hearts ~ let us listen and feel for the worms that threaten a good crop that grows there ~ only then shall we share the sweet bounty of our efforts in kindness & brotherhood. Who but the poet can do such?
Yes we none of us should forget and wont be thanx to people like yourself who give great honor respect to those of yesterdays wars ..Its a sad reality that we are not learning also that war is not the answer for peace nor to keeping what one values in life Life itself Your writing is excellent Im glad I was giving directions to your blog all the best ImY”
Your account of these men is moving. Thank you for sharing.
Hi, Thank you for visiting my new blog. Reading through your collection of haiku is wonderful. They are very evocative. Your reason for starting this blog is very unique and touching.
Thank you, bonaru, for visiting my blog. Yes, I meant and still mean to write something about those two WW2 pilots who dedicated their lives to their respective country. The countries they fought for were then enemies to each other. Had I been born some years earlier, I would have died in a similar way as they did, and they were just two of thousands upon thousands of others who also died in the war. And many others are still dying in wars today. We have somehow to stop that stupidity. Thanks again for visiting my blog.
very interesting space you have filled with reflections – i look forward to reading!
Thank you for visiting my blog. I feel very much honored. I’m in the process of writing story poems in tribute to the two late fighter pilots. So much come to my mind and I cannot tell you when I might be able to complete them. But I will someday complete them.
Hi AshiAkira – Thank you for visiting my blog & for the follow. I enjoy your About page & dedication of it to the two gentlemen “ghosts.”
I look forward to reading more of your posts.
PeACe!
Thank you for visiting my blog and reading the About page. I came to know of those two gentlemen in strange ways. They fought as fighter pilots for their respective countries which were enemies to each other in the war and died. A lot of other young people died in similar ways and I could have been one of them had I been born just a few years earlier. I was educated in both of those countries after the war, and the two men have never left my mind.
* Whom shall I send and who will go for us *
(Isaiah6:8)
http://windwhisperer.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/cemetery-014.jpg
I recall the experience sweet and sad . So touching !
Thank you for visiting my blog. Hope we’ll exchange visits to each other’s blog as much as possible in the future.
welcome ! and thanks back
will try.
I love your posts. They are BEAUTIFUL!
http://sharingmemyselfandi.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/overwhelmed-with-blog-awards/
PeAce!
And another – because you deserve it – LOVE your blog!
Because you deserve it & then some!
ONE LOVELY BLOG AWARD for you
http://sharingmemyselfandi.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/attacked-by-awards/
These are heart touching words and I thank you for them. An inspiring blog, I look forward to reading more
Thank you for visiting my blog and reading this About. I’m trying to write more about those two men.
A beautiful article. Did you ever find out what the P-38 was doing over Bulgaria at the time it went down?
Thank you, Seb, for visiting my blog and reading the About. According to a US Army Air Force report, he was then on his way to Floesti, Romania, on a mission of “Cover Dive Bombers”. I understand there was an oil refinery there to be bombed. I’m planning someday to write a story poem about him, and his mother.
Correction: the above city which has been bombarded durin WW2 correct name is PLOIESTI (with P not F).There still be a huge oil prossesing plant.The americans pilots
miss much of their mission.Many lives lost because of poor planing by Air Force.Only 2 or 3 pilots escape from SS hand. They find a way out of Romania with the help of locals. :
Thank you, Romulus, for the advice. My excuse is that many of those typed letters on the old report are smeared and difficult for me to make out.
Hi, Thank you so much for coming by my blog and following. Thank you also for sharing your heartfelt story with us.
What beautifully touching stories. Combined with your poetry, they brought uncustomary tears to my eyes.
(My husband is German/Japanese American. His father and mother married shortly after the war and experienced extreme racial prejudice. A son was born–my husband–and the grandparents refused to acknowledge his birth. Years later, that son and I married. One would think that by then such racial feelings would no longer exist. However, we encountered similar problems. Sad.)
Thank you for visiting my blog and reading the story. I think I understand the racial feelings you say you encountered. My first non-Japanese friend in my life was a German-American whom I met in the US over 50 years ago. He used to tell me of experiences he went through. After all Germany and Japan were major enemies to the US during the war, and it’s understandable, although I also feel sad. (The German-American friend of mine and I both published books. We still exchange mail now.)
Hi AshiAkira, I am nominating you for the One Lovely Blog Award. Please see my post titled One Lovely Blog for more details. Thank you for your wonderful haiku! Cheers,Ronnie
Thank you for the visits and the following .
Greetings AshiAkira, I am so glad that you sent my the address of your blog. I have just begun to read it and amazed at how privileged I have been to know you. Your writing honors the men you write about. You write with feeling and a personal connection. I am hopeful that you will soon find the opportunity to visit us in America again. I always look forward for the chance to discuss the past.
AshiAkira, your prompt visits to each new blog I publish encourage me to keep writing. Your depth of soul and sensitivity reflected in your writing reminds me of an ACIM quote, “Today I see the world in the celestial gentleness with which creation shines.”
Thank you for the kind comment and the qhote. I feel highly honored.
Congratulation! I just nominated you for “Wonderful Team Member Readership Award.” Please see my post for your acceptance and participation : http://exxtracts.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1788&action=edit&message=6&postpost=v2
Please ignore the above link. Correct link is : http://exxtracts.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/team-member-readership-award/
AshiAkira-san Wonderful words, look forward to visiting often
very interesting space you have filled with reflections…Wonderful Post Orofiorentino from Italy
Your account of the two men were very moving..and haikus a little sad and beautifully written…
The beauty in your heart to make the words is for all human. Thank you, sir.
Thank you for such a kind comment, and thank you for following my blog.
I was lead here by the Vermont Girl and I am glad I came. I am working with WWII letters and this post touched my heart, thank you.
Thank you for stopping by. Had I been born 10 years or so earlier, I might have piloted one of those WWII fighters to “proudly” kill Americans and I would have died. But my life led me in a different way so that a group of American citizens paid for a major part of my education in the US. Recently I almost died from an asthma attack. but my life was saved by a series of conincidences. These experiences make me think more strongly than ever before that we have an almightly watcher in common to all of us.
Feel free to stop by for a cup o’ coffee: http://wp.me/p2oM0H-V5
Thanks for your this posting.
Thank you for visiting my blog and reading this story. I really appreciate it.
So many tears AshiAkira. I am crying. Your words are beautiful and true. Your blog is excellent. This story rich and poignant. Thank you for your creativity and for sharing your experiences here. I am deeply moved. Penny
Overwhelmed by such a kind comment. I thank you very much. I planned some “story-poems” as a follow-up to the About on those two men and the mother, but I’m still “struggling” with them. I survived an asthma attack by sheer chances late last year, and this experience gave me a feeling that I have to hurry up to finish them. I believe what these people went through during their life time has to be known to the world.
You’re sincerely welcome.I agree with you and I wish you well in accomplishing this.
This post gave me serious goosbumps. My uncle was shot down and a POW in Europe in WWII. He’s 88 and just now talking about it…..
I really appreciate your visiting my blog and reading this post. I’d imagine your uncle has lots of things he wants to talk about.
Ashi, my friend,
As part of being nominated for the Very Inspiring Blog Award, which elliebloo, ( whose site is at: http://simplypoeticme.com/2013/04/06/inspiring-blogger-award/ ) honored me with, I am to nominate 15 blogs that inspire me… Yours is one of those blogs, and has been ever since I first came to read your work…. Thanks for being part of the WP family, and for all the inspiring work I read here….. You can find your nomination, and the rules for acceptance, here:
http://gigoid.me/2013/04/12/theyre-having-a-sale-on-wing-nuts/#comment-4179
~~ gigoid, the dubious…..
Thank you for the offer. It’s a tremendous honor. I also thank you for visiting my blog and reading my pieces.
Thanks for following my blog! I hope I will be able to churn out content that could someday match up to your beautiful work here.
So many lives are lost and forgotten in terrible wars and other forms of violence around the world, single day. You have immortalized two such souls by dedicating your blog to them, and by sharing a part of their life-story with us. I hope that countless others find their way to this blog someday.
Thank you. I really appreciate you reading this post. I’m planning to write more about the two and the mother someday. I hope many people will then visit this blog.
This is such a heartfelt story. Beautiful.
Thank you for visiting my blog. I visited yours and thought it was a very interestingn blog. Looking forward to further exchanging of visits in the future.
First time seeing somebody dedicating the post to somebody else…lovely thought and really touched my heart by poem….so nice and good writing I must say…very nice to meet you here Ashi…I will keep an eye on your blog…and thanks a lot for browsing my blog…
My dear friend Ashi…I have nominated you with the Sunshine Award…it’s OK for you to take time to post about it or if you are busy then leave it as well so that it doesn’t become a chore…but I would like to show my appreciation through this award for your awesome blog and you being such a nice person and an awesome friend. Wish you an awesome day ahead!
Another time I am coming with nomination for you my dear friend and it shows that you have an awesome blog
http://talkingexperience.wordpress.com/2013/05/05/sunshine-award/
Fascinating about.l admire your faithfulness.>The memories past.Thank you for following my blog.Blessings and regards.jalal
Ohayo gozaimassu, Ashiakira-san! Off-topic with your permission, domo arigato!
I love and I miss Nihon… Sayonara, stay healthy and good luck in all your endeavours! Respectful regards, Mél/ranie-san… 
We’re very happy because our Japanese friends from Kyushu where we went last fall will visit us this month…
I just recently following your blog and I find it very interesting. very good job. BTW thanks for all the likes and following my blog. Salamat po, Mabuhay ka (Thank you and long live in Filipino) from Philippines