They Were Soldiers

It is over 700 miles from Japan and yet is still today considered a part of Tokyo. Surrounded by the deep Pacific Ocean, from the air it looks like a bone-in pork chop with one of the vertebrae still in at the southern end. That round vertebra is Mt. Suribachi, the extinct volcano that came to symbolize the ultimate sacrifice of thousands of men and women during the island hopping campaign of the Second World War. It was only the fourth day of the fighting in February of 1945 that one of the most iconic photographs of all time was taken, capturing a signature moment pride and entirely by accident.

There had already been one flag raising on the island much to the outrage of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers garrisoned to defend the island and support the airbases there protecting the southern air approaches to Japan. As with all things related to politics and propaganda the first raising was staged and the flag was smaller although certainly no less patriotic. To the men who were there it remains the only raising that really counts.

The second was to raise a larger flag to give to a government bureaucrat observing from the beaches that day so six guys at random were tapped to do the honors. A photographer named Joe Rosenthal who happened to be nearby turned around at the last possible second, saw what was happening and captured the image that almost literally saved the war in the Pacific. By then Americans were grown weary of death and telegrams and war budgets were getting precariously low. Washington brought three of the flag raisers home for a war bond tour - the other three were killed on the island - boosting morale and the national coffers to see the fighting through to the end later that year.

Nine years later the United States Marine Corps War Memorial, more popularly known as the Iwo Jima Memorial, was dedicated outside of Washington, D.C. on a hill in Rosslyn, Virginia overlooking capital city. It is a particular favorite place of mine to go and relax, reflect, enjoy the views of the city and consider all things unique to this monument in the annals of American and world history. I simply love being there and took Mom this time as part of a visit to Arlington National Cemetery to pay our respects to Senator Ted Kennedy.

As we walked around the memorial several busloads of tourists arrived shortly after we did. These were not just any tourists. These were actual veterans of World War II, some from the Pacific Theater, and all participating in Honor Flight. This volunteer network is across the country and serves to honor and serve those who served our nation by taking them on tours to the capital to see how their efforts have been acknowledged through the various artworks around the city. Some in their nineties, some in wheelchairs, one guy from Tennessee as chatty as you please and all quite happy to be out and about on a glorious day in D.C. Mom made sure to thank as many as she could personally before they loaded up on the bus and we headed over to see Teddy. He's on the left in the picture below, Bobby on the right.

The country and the world have come a long way from that brutal and blustery day in 1945. For me it is always good to remember and for the veterans who just happened to be there it simply became priceless. No longer merely statues, names etched in marble or photos from other events; each and every one of them for the first time in my life were alive that day. They were soldiers.

Gotta go.

Miyajima's Meaning

In the course of one day in the Hiroshima Headlands I was to discover a lot more than unfortunate military history. I had wrapped up touring Hiroshima itself and had the rest of the afternoon to explore the waters around this infamous Japanese city. Starting off from the local pier under blue azure skies, the mountains rose green and forested from the deep blue waters themselves. It amazed me to see how the water still remained blue in tone despite the hive of industrial activity all around the area.

Kure, Japan was not too far away, where much Japanese commercial and military shipping was and still is built and maintained. Mazda was and remains headquartered in the area while the Japanese Naval Academy, Etajima, still operates from the storied island at the center of the bay.

Car carriers floated benignly in the deep waters as my ferry carried us away from Hiroshima Harbour, instantly and easily evoking the thoughts of what the full might of the Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carriers that once sailed these waters must have looked like to locals and tourists alike, imposing, towering above the waves, bristling with firepower, majestic and intimidating to one and all alike. Maybe 20 minutes later our little boat pulled in to the harbor of Miyajima Island, my last and final destination of the day.

The first thing to greet tourists alighting from the mainland is a herd of miniature deer. Sort of domesticated ambassadors to the island, they come up placidly looking for hand outs and patiently enduring children on their backs as adoring parents angle for cute pictures to take back home. If the deer had any ticks no one seemed overly concerned. When they saw there was no hand out action from me the moved on and I made my way towards the UNESCO World Heritage site that is the Itsukushima Shrine.

At first I didn't even know this classic Japanese landmark was in the same area. After finishing my tour of Hiroshima I stumbled across a brochure of tours around the harbor that included Miyajima and the shrine. Sold. And when I got there, breathtaking.

The shrine itself is not the draw, as important as it is to the Shinto faithful. The complex is a cluster of traditional Japanese wooden architecture with pathways and bridges connecting buildings and meditative gardens filled with lilies and ponds of Japanese carp to each other, blending beautifully and aesthetically in to the mountain finery behind it. All standard issue minimalist beauty but the catch in the throat, "Oh my God" moment comes in seeing the Torii Gate standing to the west in the waters just off shore.

Other than Mt. Fuji itself very few landmarks, natural or manmade are as instantly identifiable with Japan as the "Torii" gate marking the presence of a Shinto shrine and symbolizing the transition between sacred and common ground. This massive example has existed in various forms since 1168 with the current iteration being built in 1875. It is made of wood from the evergreen camphor tree, painted an orange-red honoring the rising sun and standing about 200 meters off shore. With the entire complex built in an island alcove the only approach to the shrine was by sea, making the location of the gate at the mouth of the small bay perfectly logical as well as characteristically stunning in aesthetic beauty and setting.

When the tide is low it can be walked to where locals insert coins in the cracks of the trunks for good luck. Otherwise it seems merely to float upon the active waters squeezed between Miyajima and the nearby "mainland" of Honshu. Sailors to this day pray as their ships passed for good fortune while the faithful come to the island offering devotions to the three daughters of Susano-O, the Japanese God of Storms and the Sea. Makes sense to a nation still dependent upon good weather and calm seas for much of its livelihood.

Outlanders like me come to meekly attempt a feeling of the very essence of a proud and deeply spiritual culture while trying to capture that one quintessential picture image before the day is done. Standing over 50 feet high from its base, this gate, the blue sea and the high green mountains all around combine in a singular way to say that this is the heart, the soul of the real Japan. Shinto or not in individual faith, few ever leave this shrine without feeling the spirit buoyed and uplifted as serenely as the upward curve of the gate itself.

I have yet to feel more in tune with the core meaning of Japan.

Gotta go.

Southampton, Simply

There are a ton of day trip options outside of Greater London that the packaged tour crowd rarely have an opportunity or interest in seeing. Dover, Canterbury, Bath and Stonehenge are most likely the big four that attract day trippers from the English capital with a few stragglers maybe showing up at Leeds Castle or down to Salisbury Plain to see the great cathedral there. Each of these attractions has a tourism infrastructure to support what business comes their way.

One city, Southampton, does not enjoy much business unless you're catching a cruise ship heading somewhere else. I decided that since I'll probably never dive to the wreck of the Titanic then I can at least go to Southampton to view some of the touch points, markers and memorials erected in the city to honor this great vessel and tragedy.

The "M3" Motorway southwest of London speeds you straight to the city on the southern coast of the country in hardly an hour's drive. At the time of the tragedy few residential streets in Southampton were spared the loss of life as fully a third of those lost came from this working class city by the sea, in most cases the sole breadwinner for the household which, often at crew wages, wasn't much to begin with. Those homes are still there today along with a few pubs frequented by both workers and passengers alike.

The grandest building, the South Western Hotel, also still stands though it has since been converted to private condominiums and flats. First Class passengers arriving from London on "the Boat Train" stayed here the night before the sailing. They could look out their windows to view the Titanic lying at anchor and finishing up final provisioning.

Holyrood, the Sailors Church, was bombed during the Second World War and preserved in that state; it contains a small memorial to the Titanic's Stewards while elsewhere is a small plaque honoring the 1st Class Band who's musicians famously played on during the sinking on April 14th. The hulking Engineer's Memorial in East Park seems barely noticed by passersby today where 100,000 attended the unveiling barely eight days after the tragedy. Beyond a doubt for me, however, the most telling marker wasn't even a memorial, plaque, tower or monument at all. It was the mooring bollards along Ocean Dock #44 that marked location of the ship prior to its one and only sailing.

The RMS Titanic berthed here and not even a wind's whisper on this calm day to tell the tale. #44 is a commercial use pier, as lacking in beauty and sentiment as any other seaport dock would be. No one travels from London to see a single, ugly, empty pier; there's nothing to see! Sometimes history cannot be seen but can surely be felt as I gazed at the stretch of concrete and up to the blue sky, smelling the smells and tasting the sea air around me. This being England there still remained traces of coal in the air as it would have been for the coal-burning Titanic and other vessels of the period.

No gift shops, no guided tours, no city ambassadors or others engaged in an effort to preserve the history and legacy of the city and the shipping of Southampton. For that I felt saddened. I saw one other thing on the way back to London, however, that gave me a shot of inspiration:

The Mayflower Memorial.

Gotta go.

Florida Forts and Follies

A few hours at the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine is worth the time. It included a couple of shows and a wide range of animals from the four corners, including South American caimans and macaws to Eastern Diamondback rattlesnakes and, of course, gators. Lots of them. Since the rain was trying to play us up and I only had the one afternoon to explore the oldest continuously inhabited city in America it was time to move on to el Castillo de San Marcos, the Spanish fort built to guard the new colony and the immediate intra-coastal waterway.

I had never known of a Spanish fort anywhere in the continental United States. And it was big, complete with a dry moat, cannons, some with a range of up to three miles, were mounted atop walls up to 60 feet thick at the base and a small museum in the rooms off of the central courtyard preserving artifacts and letters from the time. Each corner or "bastion" was diamond shaped to allow a withering crossfire against any enemy on land or out to sea. At the tip were these lonely sentry posts with peepholes through which any traffic of interest might be monitored.

In the days before radar, sat-com and AWAC there was simply no getting by this formidable redoubt which ironically guarded a settlement that even today barely tops 12,000 citizens. In the larger scheme of 16th and 17th century America, however, San Marcos anchored the Florida coastline for ships returning to Spain and maintaining a toehold on the continent for Spanish interests against English, French and Native American pressure.

Directly across the A1A coastal highway is the remains of the main north gate which protected the inner part of the colony while the fort guarded the sea approaches. Nearby and notably outside the city gates is the Huguenot Cemetery which, while not associated specifically with French Huguenots, was dedicated in 1821 as the burial place for non-Catholic victims of age, war and plague in the area. The cemetery closed to new burials only a few decades after it first opened but thanks to haunted ghost stories from some of the interred it remains as compelling a part of the local history as any other site.

I skipped the Fountain of Youth as the brochures made it look as appealing as a roadside carnival, loaded with kitsch and cotton candy but not much substance. Likewise the central part of the city was well preserved from the outside but inside was little more than a tourist mall of gift shops, high end clothiers and "local flavor" eateries, crass commercialism at its finest. The fort, however, silently said it all. It held vigil over a bygone era and truly brought home how hotly contested the New World had been.

Maybe to enhance the already impressive fort someone will find a way to anchor a Spanish galleon, a French frigate and a British ship-o'-the-line alongside to complete the picture.

Gotta go.

The Optimist Bucket List - Item 2

In the first installment of my own personal “Bucket List” I mentioned the desire to travel with the presidential entourage on Air Force One. Also, that in creating this list of ten achievements I devised a validity test of at least three of five attributes that each quest must satisfy. In the second of the ten items on my list I would like to witness the discovery of the "Kido Butai," the Japanese fighting force of six aircraft carriers of the "Combined Fleet" that attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.

The story of Pearl Harbor and the outcome of the Second World War has been told and in many ways is still unfolding. The hole left in this story, however, is why no effort has been made to find these historical vessels. Their combined and individual exploits under the Imperial Chrysanthemum shown above have likewise been well documented; what is not documented is exactly where each vessel rests.

Why not?

A National Geographic documentary highlighting the discovery of the USS "Yorktown" included two Japanese survivors of the Battle of Midway who were on board in case “Kaga,” their home carrier was also discovered. I remember most chillingly from the video that a 30,000 ton aircraft carrier would look like a single grain of rice on the radar screen from three miles down! "Kaga" was not found but the emotions felt by these gentlemen once again sailing on the waters of battle were palpable.

It occurred to me from this documentary and also thru time spent in Japan that this is a people deeply in touch with their ancestors and strongly desirous in seeking to ensure those forebears are able to rest peacefully. Four of the six were infamously lost in one day while the last was sunk nearly a year before the final end of the war.

"Akagi," lost at the Battle of Midway by dive bombers, June 4, 1942. 267 men lost
"Kaga," lost at the Battle of Midway by dive bombers, June 4, 1942. 811 men lost.
"Soryu," lost at the Battle of Midway by dive bombers, June 4, 1942. 711 men lost.
"Hiryu," lost at the Battle of Midway by dive bombers, June 4, 1942. 392 men lost.
"Shokaku," lost at the Battle of the Philippine Sea by submarine attack, June 19, 1944. 1, 272 men lost.
"Zuikaku," lost at the Battle of Cape Enganao by torpedoes and bombs, October 25, 1944. 843 men lost.

The "Titanic," "Bismarck" and "Yorktown" were each found and by the same man leading the way, Dr. Robert Ballard. Surely the families of nearly 4,300 men deserve similar closure over 65 years later?

Gotta go.