Loss of Innocence: The Tsushima-Maru Incident – Mr. Hisashi Teruya

The Second World War took place from 1939 to 1945 and it is known for being one of the most devastating conflicts in history. This was due to the total involvement of national powers with all the strength they had; not just military personnel, but also civilians using economic power, and the latest science and technology. Many civilians fell victim to air raids, massacres, and other atrocities. The Pacific War was fought between Japan and the Allied Powers, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands from December 8, 1941 to August 15, 1945. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and the landing on the Malay Peninsula triggered this conflict. It lasted until Japan’s acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration following the U.S. atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Okinawa is the only place in Japan where civilians were involved in a ground battle, called the “Battle of Okinawa.” 

In the summer of 1944, it was clear that Okinawa was going to be a battlefield, so the evacuation of women, children, and elderly people to places such as mainland Japan and Taiwan began. On August 21, the Tsushima-maru departed from Naha Port carrying schoolchildren and other evacuees to Nagasaki. Previously, this 30-year-old cargo ship was used to bring Japanese soldiers from Shanghai, China, to Okinawa. After soldiers arrived in Okinawa for the last time, it was then used to transport the evacuees. 1,788 people including many schoolchildren from Naha City were on board. The Tsushima-maru sailed as part of the Convoy Namo-103, which consisted of three cargo ships – the Tsushima-maru, Kazuura-maru, and Gyoku-maru – escorted by the destroyer Hasu and the gunboat Uji.  At around 10 p.m. on August 22, the day after departure, the Tsushima-maru was attacked by torpedoes from the U.S. Navy submarine USS Bowfin near Akuseki Island in Kagoshima. It took only about ten minutes for the Tsushima-maru to sink completely. As a result, many people were trapped inside and lost their lives. People who escaped into the sea drifted on rafts and pieces of wood, but many eventually died because of rough waves, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. Out of 1,788 passengers on board, about 1,484 lost their lives which means only 17% survived. Of those 1,484 who perished, 1,040 were aged 0 to 15 which means about 70% of the victims were children. Of about 843 gakudo sokai (pupils’ evacuation) evacuees, only 59 (about 7%) survived. However, the number of ippan sokai (general evacuation) evacuees is not known. Some survivors were rescued and taken to Kagoshima while others drifted at sea for several days before reaching Amami Oshima about 150 kilometers from the sinking, where they were rescued and cared for by local people. 

There are some key points to understand about the Tsushima-maru incident. First, it was an indiscriminate attack on civilians to block the Japanese Army’s supply route completely. The U.S. military was conducting unrestricted submarine warfare from the beginning of the Pacific War. It meant “submarines shall attack all naval vessels without warning and merchant ships – whether military or civilian – deemed to be associated with the enemy nation.” So, the Tsushima-maru was attacked even though it was transporting mainly civilians. At the time, attacking indiscriminately was considered a violation of the law. However, submarines were a “new weapon” then, and were considered “an exempt weapon” to be used freely. During the war, both sides conducted unrestricted submarine warfare. The U.S. military reported that they were not aware that evacuating children were on board. However, they had cracked the Japanese Navy’s codes, and knew the Tsushima-maru’s route, so it was tracked by the USS Bowfin (SS-287). During the war, at least 31 ships related to Okinawa were sunk, and two more ships are still being investigated. Most were sunk by torpedo attacks or air raids. Among them, the Tsushima-maru suffered the largest number of deaths.

Second, the survivors have been suffering from trauma and a “gag order” for their whole lives. The Tsushima-maru accident happened right before their very eyes, and they lost their family and friends. Many survivors reported that they have experienced many flashbacks which made them suffer even more. Some people drifted at sea for as long as six days, creating a great trauma. After being helped at Kyushu, the Japanese Military Police silenced them, and they could not even tell their family about the incident. If they spoke, they were threatened with the death penalty. The Japanese Military hid the fact that the Tsushima-maru sank because they wanted to prevent loss of civilians’ morale, unrest, and resistance to evacuation. Immediately after World War II, 59 children who survived went back to Okinawa and faced a harsh reality: they had lost their families, and their hometown had been completely burned to the ground. In addition, the families who had lost their children blamed the survivors for the loss of their family. To make things worse, the government’s strict policy of covering up the truth about the incident made the survivors suffer more and led to the loss of valuable documents that captured the situation at the time.

Interviewee’s Background

We interviewed Hisashi Teruya who is one of the survivors of the Tsushima-maru incident. He was only four years old when the incident occurred. He evacuated with his mother on ippan sokai (general evacuation) and sister who was on gakudo sokai (pupils’ evacuation), boarding with other children on the front of the ship. In gakudo sokai, children were evacuated from each school or regional unit with their teachers, and they lived at elementary schools or farmers’ homes after arriving at each destination, and it was well organized. On the other hand, general evacuees traveled individually and went to their relatives’ homes, normally in the countryside. Therefore, it is reported that many evacuees were forced to move around.

USS Bowfin’s attack on Tsushima-maru killed Mr. Teruya’s mother and sister. Also, his father who had been deployed to China was interned in Siberia and was made to do hard labor in a severe environment after the war, and eventually died of starvation. So, he lost his entire family in the war and became a war orphan. After diving into the dark and rough ocean from 10 meters high and drifting for about 16 hours, he was rescued by a teenager on a fishing boat. Then he moved around his relatives’ homes in Kagoshima, Osaka, and Miyazaki. He spent much of his life not telling anyone about his experience; however, he started working as a storyteller at Tsushima-maru Memorial Museum when he was 70 years old.  

Interview

Q: How much do you remember of that period? 

Honestly, I have only a few memories because I was just four years old then.  What I remember the most is when the ship was attacked and I jumped into the sea with my mother. It was sometime after 10 p.m., when the surroundings were silent, and my mother said she was going to look for my older sister. Before she left, she told me not to let go of a barrel we were holding onto. However, that moment was the last time I ever saw her. At that time, I was only four. I could not understand how she would leave such a young child behind and go into the dark, limitless sea. It did not make sense to me then. However, now that I’m an adult, I understand she did what she had to do as a parent. I believe it was a mother’s instinct.

Q: It doesn’t have to be a whole event but do you have scenes or images you can recall?

I remember the images in my mind. [Before the ship sank], a typhoon had been near Daito Island, and I still have this sensation where the waves pushed me up and down violently. When the waves raised me high up, I could see far away, and when the waves brought me down, I felt as if I was closer to the bottom of the sea.

Q: Do you think you still have some trauma from the tragedy you experienced in your childhood?

After experiencing the Tsushima-maru tragedy, I became afraid of the sea and I hardly ever went to the sea. When I was young, I once slept near the beach during a camping trip, and the sound of the waves crashing on the beach woke me up with the feeling that something was pulling my legs. Because of that, I never went swimming, even in pools. At the time, I was not aware of it, but now, I believe those experiences remained with me as signs of trauma.

Q: Children were caught up in a war and they lost their families even though they didn’t know the situation. I think you might have friends who had their whole family’s lives taken in the war. During your school life, were there occasions where you talked about it?                        

There were not many. Of course we should have shared various stories such as incidents during the war, Tsushima-maru, and about their own families. But, we were all casual with each other, so we didn’t worry too much about others and didn’t mention anything about our deep grief. I think that we used to talk about childish topics and acted like kids, just like students today. Actually, on the contrary we concentrated on being competitive. We were looking for weak points in our friends and hit them just for fun. For example, there was a “dialect card” (hogen fuda) [where you had to wear it as a penalty for talking in the Okinawan language]. This was a game of our childhood. If you were made to wear a dialect card, you looked for another classmate to force it on instead. You stepped on someone’s foot, and then he screamed in Okinawan language instantly, so you could get rid of the dialect card. Doing so, we used to think about how we could drag someone down. For us, being children, all we did was just be competitive and playful. Even now, we can talk about it with classmates and laugh with each other.

Q: Why did you become a storyteller of your Tsushima-maru experiences?

After returning to Okinawa, wherever I went, people in the community and even relatives would say, “This child survived the Tsushima-maru.” And I hated being talked about. Even after I was over 70, I never voluntarily spoke about the Tsushima-maru. The experience stayed with me like an allergy that I had to deal with. When I retired at 60, I was asked if I would become a storyteller and speak about the Tsushima-maru, but I refused at the time. However, I saw many older storytellers retiring, and I felt that I needed to help while I still could. It was difficult for me to speak in detail about my own experiences, so instead I decided to use historical materials and documents to explain the situation during WWII, and help people understand what had happened. 

Q: What do you think about peace education in the future?

Today, the Tsushima-maru is regarded as a part of peace education. However, when I look at the current situations involving Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and Iran, I sometimes wonder whether the world is truly at peace. Even so, I believe that we cannot talk about the future without knowing the past. I think it is important to teach children how irrational and tragic wars are, and they must never happen again. That is why I have continued working as a storyteller for the past fifteen years.

Reflections

Before the interview, we had expected Mr. Teruya to speak more emotionally, knowing what he had gone through; however, he shared his experience in a calm and objective way. At the same time, we realized that the experience still has a huge effect on him; he is still afraid of the sea and hasn’t been able to go near water for many years. Upon interviewing Mr. Teruya, we asked Ms. Horikiri, a staff member at the Tsushima-maru Memorial Museum, about the storytellers’ background. She told us that most storytellers view the incident objectively and tell the facts like Mr. Teruya. It is said that trauma appears differently in each person, and in Mr. Teruya’s case it is somewhat hidden. Even with his trauma, we were impressed with his sense of responsibility to share his story. Recalling his horrible experience was something he didn’t want to do, but his wish for peace and to promote peace to future generations made him become a storyteller because “we cannot talk about the future without knowing the past.”

This project made us realize how little we knew about Okinawan history, despite having lived in Okinawa for 20 years and having received peace education every year at school. We know that there are a lot of things that we must think about and share with future generations. More than 80 years have passed since the Battle of Okinawa, and we feel a deep fear as the memories of the war fade away day by day. We believe that it is deeply meaningful to preserve the words of those who have traumatic wartime experiences and we would like to continue to learn from the past, pay attention to the world, and think and act with a view toward lasting peace in the future.

References

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Researchers

Hello! My name is Kokoa Yamashiro, and I am a fourth-year student of International Communication at Okinawa University in Okinawa, Japan. I study languages, intercultural communication, and global social issues. I got interested in other countries at the age of eight, which inspired me to start learning English. I am also interested in learning Spanish and French because I enjoy discovering different languages and cultures. My hobby is traveling. I enjoy visiting new places and experiencing local food, cultures, and languages both in Japan and abroad. I especially love my home, Okinawa. Every summer, I enjoy visiting Okinawa’s remote islands. In the future, I hope to make a positive contribution to society by helping others. I believe that every new experience helps me grow, so I always try to challenge myself and continue learning. Thank you for reading our article!

Hello! I am Yu Yonamine, a third-year student of International Communication, also at Okinawa University.  Lately, I’m into spending time with my friends, and recording those memories with a camera or in a diary. I major in Japanese and English language education in order to become a teacher. I am also interested in Peace Study. I believe that connecting the world through learning a language helps make a more peaceful future. That is why I want to teach language to children. I joined the “Peace Now! Okinawa 2025” peace study program for college students and as the only member from Okinawa I thought about how to share my ideas. We researched and discussed peace for the first time. In the future, I’d like to share my experiences and knowledge; especially of my home of Okinawa’s history.