Word: tome
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...Chiran to pay tribute at what was once the nation's biggest kamikaze base. Locals speculate that demoralized Japanese come here in search of heroes. Or because Sept. 11 sparked increasing curiosity about Japan's own suicide bombers. But most know they come because of a Chiran woman named Tome Torihama whom the kamikazes called...
...facing defeat and short of resources, the imperial army began to send off pilots in planes with enough fuel only for a one-way trip. Chiran's location in a hidden valley close to Okinawa made it an ideal launchpad for the so-called Tokkotai, or Special Attack Corps. Tome ran the Tomiya eatery in Chiran. The pilots, many still teenagers, spent their last days 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...
...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...
...After the war, the public turned against the kamikazes. "The world thought they were crazy fanatics who died shouting banzai for the Emperor," says Hatsuyo Torihama, who is married to another of Tome's grandchildren. Tome waged a one-woman battle to untaint their memory, showing the soldiers' photos to customers and collecting donations for the town to put up a statue of the goddess of mercy in 1955. "But no one came," says Hatsuyo. "Not a soul...
...Eventually, they did come. A museum dedicated to the pilots was erected next to the statue in 1975 using federal, town and donated funds. Then came 1,036 stone lanterns, one for each pilot who died. But it was after Tome's death in 1992 at age 89 that she won her lifelong struggle. Thanks to Japanese media reports, she became known nationwide as the "Kamikaze Mom," and even skeptics repulsed by the deadly missions warmed to the granny's tale. Ken Takakura, the John Wayne of Japan, conceived of a motion picture after visiting Chiran, in which he starred...