Miyazaki town remembers Japanese, U.S. dead from 2 plane crashes around WWII end

The Hayabusa was an incredibly agile and nimble fighter - much more so than the Zero even, but was effectively made of paper - had no meaningful armour whatsoever. That they were using these for Kamikaze attacks shows just how futile and desperate their situation was at this point. Those planes, if they ever made it to their target, which was extremely rare being piloted by boys who could barely fly in a straight line, would simply disintegrate on impact.

A sad end to a episode of military madness.

No ‘revisionist’ history here, just a well-written story that’s ‘worth the read’. Just plain & simple truths of what transpired, how people acted, what was found and what was done. It highlights small ‘slices of life’ before & after the last days of the war and the effect on ‘people’ on both sides.

“Well Done!” to the person who found the wreckage & made it his job to rally the community. Truly honorable examples of the much lauded, ‘honest and peace-loving Japanese’ that Westerners can believe and want to encounter in their ‘Japanese experience’ when travel, tourism and cross-cultural relations can resume.

Well done, KYODO. - More like this story is needed. Thanks.

What a generous gesture from people who have no reason to be so generous. It is fully congruent with my understanding of real Japanese culture. Thank you, People of Takachiho, you have done our lost children a great honor and shown us forgiveness that we might have had difficulty showing had we been in your position.

That was real nice of the local villagers to rush to the crash site to gather the scattered supplies. Maybe try and look for and help any survivors first?

The B-29 was a big plane. Surely the US has more info about the crash and you'd think they would have put up a memorial at the site long ago. Maybe they did? The article doesn't mention it, but were the bodies all collected by the US military? Or because the crash was only 2 weeks after the end of the war, were there no Occupation Forces there yet?

More info is available at http://mansell.com/pow_resources/camplists/fukuoka/fuk_01_fukuoka/fukuoka_01/Tkachiho.htm

KYODO is clear here, but those in power obviously lied to the young kamikaze’s family & hometown, placing his death in Korea rather than near the training area in Japan. Why did Japan need another misguided ‘hero’ to rally around, rather than immediately surrender after Hiroshima Aug 6, 1945?

- “The other accident occurred on Aug 7, just as the war was drawing to a close. Sgt. Gijin Toku, 21, was on its way from Metabaru in Saga Prefecture to the Korea Strait before it crashed.

*Although government documents placed the crash site in the Korea Strait**, residents in Takachiho found the fighter's fuselage in the mountains. They also buried the body of Toku in the military cemetery in the town.” -*

Was his family ever told the truth and his remains returned to them?

Thanks to @ToshiYori 2:19pm for that additional, enlightening read, directly from available sources.

- “ More info is available at:

http://mansell.com/pow_resources/camplists/fukuoka/fuk_01_fukuoka/fukuoka_01/Tkachiho.htm

Gives a better understanding of people’s sentiments before, during and after the war.

The other accident occurred on Aug 7, just as the war was drawing to a close. Piloted by Sgt. Gijin Toku, who was 21, the fighter was on its way from the Metabaru airfield in Saga Prefecture, a training site of the kamikaze special attack unit, to the Korea Strait for night navigational exercises before it crashed.

Although government documents placed the crash site in the Korea Strait, residents in Takachiho found the fighter's fuselage in the mountains. They also buried the body of Toku in the military cemetery in the town.

What makes the gov't report even more suspicious is that, if this was a navigational exercise, why was this pilot so way off-course? Takachiho is probably a 12-minute flight in the exact opposite direction from the Korean Straits, assuming he was flying at the Hayabusa's max speed (500km/hr) over the 100 km distance to the crash site. But more likely, he was at cruising speed and would have taken closer to 30 minutes. 30 minutes of flight time off-course is unlikely esp. if it's in the opposite direction ...