Word: akihisa
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...hanging around her place. She cooked their favorite meals, smuggled their farewell letters to sweethearts past military censors, and gave the airmen their final hugs goodbye. Tome, then a middle-aged mother of two girls, "often said she cherished each (pilot) as if he were her own son," says Akihisa Torihama, 42, her grandson and a resident of Chiran...
...Tome told their stories "hundreds, no, thousands of times to anyone who'd listen," says Akihisa. There was Katsuo Katsumata, a 22-year-old with a mischievous grin who told Tome to stop crying over his departure or else "you'll go bald." There was handsome Ryoji Uehara, also 22, who sent his intended a parting message by circling letters in a book. ("Kyoko-chan, goodbye," it read. "I love you.") There was Saburo Miyakawa, 20, who on the eve of his mission told Tome he would see her at the eatery the next night. He smiled at her bafflement...
...Japan, conceived of a motion picture after visiting Chiran, in which he starred as a former kamikaze pilot who survived. Among the top-grossing domestic films of 2001, it was called Hotaru (Firefly). Hatsuyo now runs the Tomiya Inn in the building that once housed the eatery. Last fall, Akihisa, her brother-in-law, opened a near-exact replica of the eatery next door to display the soldiers' letters and photographs. It is called the Hotaru-kan, or the Firefly House...
...following day, Nakajima decided to come to Chiran with his three kids. "My children need to know the importance of peace." This would surely have pleased Tome. "(Before she died,) she was writing to then President George Bush, asking him to end the Gulf War," says her grandson Akihisa. "If people can relate to a woman like Tome Torihama, then there's hope for Japan?and the world...
...family wants JAL and Boeing to pay up. (Boeing had admitted liability for a faulty repair job and paid 80% of the earlier settlements.) But they admit money can't heal all wounds. At the spot on Mount Osutaka where Akihisa Yukawa's body was found, his family fusses over a makeshift memorial. Bayly leaves a cake from his favorite bakery, Diana her second CD. Says Cassie: "Nothing can ever truly compensate us for having to grow up without...