I got to feel like riding my scooter around suddenly seeing blue sky last Sunday. I went to Gogoshima Island, 10 minutes off the shore of Matsuyama City. The picture shows my scooter on the ferry boat and a monument that I found by chance honoring the victims of a submarine accident in World War Two. When the accident happened, the submarine was on the way to the battlefield and was repeating the training of going underwater and bursting to the surface. The monument seems to have been placed at the nearest point from the accident site on the island. I got sad to read the words on the monument. I shouted in my mind, "No more war!" I didn't know about this accident. Though more than a half century has passed since the accident, the monument was managed in a neat and tidy manner. Some oranges, fresh water and some plants were placed praying for the souls of those who perished in the accident. I guess they were deeply sorry, not that they had to die, but that they couldn't join the war.
The last picture was taken at almost the highest point of the island. As you see, it is a destroyer of the Maritime Self-Defense Force of Japan. It looked like the warship had just come out of Kure Base, where Yamato, the all-time biggest warship, was constructed just before World War Two.
(Vocabulary)
cruise underwater / go underwater / navigate underwater 潜航する
burst to the surface 〔潜水艦が〕急浮上する
pray for the souls of those who perished in the fighting 戦争に殉じた人の冥福を祈る
warship 戦艦, 軍艦
all-time 空前の, かつてない
(KW: 潜水艦事故)
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