There were other several items that I shouldn't have overlooked in the archives. The set of 1000 paper cranes in the following picture would have been sent to the Ehime Maru Memorial (link) from high school students in Ehime Prefecture. The staff members of the archives wouldn't give any thought to the hopes and prayers of the students with which the paper cranes were imbued. I just supposed that they didn't know where to keep them and hung them there along with another set of 1000 paper cranes carelessly and without a suitable description.
The home port of Ehime Maru is Uwajima City, where I had lived in my childhood. This rural small city was bombed 8 times in total during the Great East Asian War. The first one was done on May 10th in 1945, and the indiscriminate bombing killed 115 citizens and left 81 injured at that time. The city had no military facilities and the departed and injured were all non-armed and ordinary people. This case was only one example of war crimes. If you count the cases of war crimes committed by the U.S., the number would become more than a thousand. Then, in the case of Japan? Can you point out even a single case with reliable evidence? I'm writing another story about humanity in the following entry about the battleship Missouri.
I heard an address through the audio guidance, which was given by George Bush on December 7th in 1991 - the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor - in the gathering of the people and veterans who survived the Japanese attack. That was an unacceptable opinion to me. I wasn't able to listen to his address clearly because of the overlapped Japanese narration, but it was as follows; The U.S. beat Japan and helped it throw totalitarianism away and become a democratic country. It's none of his business. There was no period of totalitarianism in the 2600 years of Japan's history. I don't want the country of at most 200 hundred years old to say such a silly comment. He should learn the history of his own country. To tell the truth, I have doubts about their nation founding year of 1776. I'll write about that some day. As for George Bush, I recalled what he had said at the 3.11 terror. He declared war against Iraq, and he shouted that the U.S. would be able to change Iraq into a democratic country, just as they changed Japan for the better half a century ago. His words incurred my wrath. Don't put Japan in the same class with Iraq. The war ended in 1945. Did democracy exist in the U.S. in 1945? Didn't he know that the famous address of Martin Luther King was delivered in 1963. That means, the U.S. hadn't been democratic at least until 1963.
気になったことは多々有った。そのうちいくつか書いておく。まず下に示す写真について。この千羽鶴はおそらくはえひめ丸事故の犠牲者に対してのものだろう。千羽鶴の意味を考えず、説明板の用意もせず、ただ同じ千羽鶴だからとここへ無造作に一緒に置いたものに思えた。
えひめ丸の母港は宇和島、わがふるさと。ここもアメリカ軍により無差別爆撃をされている。第一回目は昭和２０年５月１０日で死者１１５人、重傷者２６人、軽傷者５５人。小さな地方都市にすぎない宇和島市だが、この後少なくとも８回の空襲を受けている。軍事施設のない普通の市民が暮らす場所を残酷に焼いている。これも戦争犯罪。アメリカ軍の戦争犯罪を数えたら、おそらく１０００件は下るまい。では日本の戦争犯罪は？誰かエビデンスを揃えて１件でも指摘できるかい？後ほど、アメリカ軍の言い訳を戦艦ミズーリの記事で書く。
音声ガイドの中に、子ブッシュの９１年１２月７日の真珠湾生存者の集まりでの演説が録音されていた。日本語のナレーションが重なっていて彼の言葉を直接確認できたわけではないが、ナレーションによると、アメリカは『日本を負かして、日本の全体主義を粉砕、日本が民主主義国家となるのを手助けした』と言っていた。大きなお世話だ。日本は２６００年前にその歴史が始まってから全体主義だった時代はない。たかだか２００年の歴史しか無い国にそんなことを言われる筋合いはない。少しは勉強しろよと言いたい。子ブッシュといえば、イラク戦争を起こしたとき、イラクも日本のように民主主義国家にすると息巻いていたことを思い出す。日本とあんな国を一緒にするなと当時腹が立ったことを思い出した。終戦は４５年、果たしてそのときアメリカに民主主義があったのか？キング牧師のあの有名な演説は確か６３年だぜ。
http://kumo.typepad.jp/weblog/2017/05/ehime-maru-the-fishery-training-boat.html
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