Kokura Luck

It was 10:28 am local time, Kokura. Grandfather reached up with ancient, gnarled fingers to brush Yukina’s dark hair out of her eyes, saying, “It will be alright, little flower.” He flashed a loving smile and pulled his handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit coat to wipe her eyes dry. He was crouched, kneeling before her as he offered her the little white square of cloth, “Shall we blow our noses?” Playfully putting the cloth against his own face, he made a great trumpeting noise to get her to giggle as he had done uncountable times before. It worked, as it usually did when she was this upset and needed relief. The others in the air raid shelter, however, were not as amused as the child. He presented the cloth to her now and holding it to her nose he instructed her to blow. When she finished, he tenderly wiped her face with a clean patch, balled up the cloth, and pocketed it. The little girl sniffled and ran her sleeve across her face. She was nine and strongly resembled her mother.

“There, there,” he said sweetly, nodding, “much better now, yes?” As he looked her over, he realized that one of her shoes had come undone. Still smiling at her, he bent lower to buckle her shoe, grunting from the exertion. Outside the shelter the air raid sirens wailed nonstop. They could hear the thump thump thump of the antiaircraft guns at the military base in Yahata; the pounding barely covering the droning engines of the B-29s so high above Kokura. She threw herself into his arms, gasping, “Kowaiyo, ojichan!’

Grandfather embraced her tightly, whispering, “I know you’re afraid, little flower, but we must try to be brave for Hiro’s sake, and for Grandmother’s.” He finished buckling her shoe and patted her foot.

Yukina was trying to be brave for her little brother, but she felt she was failing. Grandfather holding her tightly was calming and reassuring, but it was oh so very difficult for her to be brave. A few feet away Hiro was sobbing and clinging desperately to Grandmother. She peered at the boy, buried in her arms. Grandmother was speaking quietly to him. He was only four, and not very aware of the why or what of all the noise and shaking from the explosions above ground. He only knew the shaking and the noise terrified him. Grandmother was sitting on the floor with the boy in her lap, gently and quietly rocking him as she whispered.

Something about Grandmother’s face made the little girl think of her older brother, Shinichi. Everyone said Shinichi had Grandmother’s smile and Father’s eyes. Grandmother seldom smiled anymore, and Father was always at work at the steel mill in the neighboring town. Whenever he came home his eyes were darkly shrouded in worry and fatigue. He was a manager and there was much to worry about. Her mother worked in the munitions plant near the mill, she too came home tired and anxious. Mother was worried about all of them of course but fretted most about her eldest son.

Shinichi had gone away to the war when he came of age two years before, and Yukina could no longer remember his face. She wished she was only half as brave as Shinichi; he had been a corporal in the army. “I can’t remember him,” she whispered.

Shinichi had been killed a year prior in a place called Saipan. He had been brave and true to his comrades and to the emperor. Due to his courage and diligence, he had made the rank of Rikugun gochō, Imperial Army corporal in the 31st Army, mere weeks before the invasion at Saipan began.  In that battle 29,000 Japanese troops were lost, and almost 15,000 civilians died. The vast majority of their remains stayed on the island; fearless Shinichi was among them. She said again pitifully, “I can’t remember him.”

In Yahata, the guns spoke up some more, “Thump, thump, thump.”

But then she remembered what he was doing so far away and why he was in the Army in the first place when he should have been in college instead. Bright, studious and serious, he had wanted to become an engineer like Father. Then the war began, and he changed his mind. He decided instead that he would rather be fighting to keep the empire safe from the Americans. Yukina recalled him saying before he left, “I will be there, little sister, so that they do not come here. Pray for me that I will be strong and fearless, and that I will return here. To you.” He would never come home again, having died with honor in battle at Saipan. She felt as if her prayers had failed him.

Oh, how she hated the Americans for taking her brother from her. In the darkness of the shelter her hatred and sorrow loomed monstrously over her. For a moment she thought she saw Shinichi not far away in the blackness, but it clearly couldn’t be him. The shadow moved and suddenly it didn’t have his shape anymore. For a moment her hope had leapt like a squirrel in a tree, falling when she came to the realization that it wasn’t him and could never be him. And still, she could not remember his face.

She felt shame that she could not recall him clearly. So many had died in that battle. Many families had lost brave sons, many of her friends had lost brothers. She was certain they remembered the faces. The papers that Grandfather had read aloud to her said the battle had been a terrible blow for the empire. The Prime Minister had been forced to resign in disgrace over the failure. Now that the enemy had taken Saipan, they had a base not that far away.

As he read aloud, she had asked Grandfather rapid-fire, “How far away is Saipan? What language do they speak? Are they like us?” The answers from him had been, “Thirteen-hundred miles or so, chīsana hana.” He nearly always called her little flower. Then he added solemnly, “That is very near, but there is still time for us. I read once that they speak Chamorro, but I know nothing about the language. They are much like us, Yukina. People all over the world are much the same. Even the different looking ones.”  When Grandfather used her first name, she knew he was telling her something very important and she knew to listen and take heed. Nonetheless she could not help asking, “Are the Americans like us?” and followed it earnestly with, “Why do they hate us?”  Grandfather, being a man of great optimism and hope told her that most Americans would not hate her if they got to know her. It was only war that made people angry and spiteful. “Hate breeds war and war breeds hate,” he had said, finally. Grandmother had been less kind in her analysis.

Around them in the utter darkness of the shelter the others waited in nearly silent terror. Frightened murmurs and aimless shuffling were the only sounds in all that blackness. Outside the shelter, however, in the neighboring town the guns of Yahata yelled harshly at the planes overhead, “Thump, thump, thump!”

Yukina’s heart pounded in time with the never-ending noise.

Word had come to Kokura of the terrible weapon unleashed at Hiroshima three days earlier. “Thump.” It was said the Americans had only dropped a single bomb, but it was enough to erase the entire ancient city from all but memory. “Thump.”  Grandfather had cried when he had heard the story on the radio. Grandmother had only sat, stock still, breathing heavily and muttering angrily.  “Thump!”  Yukina had strained to understand, but understanding wouldn't come. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed and covered her ears, her heart thundering with the guns.

When the air raid sirens had first wailed early that August morning, people scrambled towards the shelters. They huddled together and prayed—some silently, some aloud—that the underground shelter would provide enough protection. Gone was the idea of dying in sacrifice to the empire; it had been vaporized in the mushroom-shaped doom that took Hiroshima. Now everyone waited to see what horror would be unleashed upon Kokura—upon them.  By some miracle, the city had been spared any bombing for several months, but nearby Yahata had not been quite so lucky.  Perhaps their time was due, they could not be spared forever.

“Thump, thump, thump,” said the guns again, their anger tearing at the heavens.  Both the heavens and the planes ignored them.

High above the city, among the clouds in the morning sky, the B-29 nicknamed “Bocscar” slowly turned away from the city of Kokura to deliver her payload at Nagasaki. At her current speed, the secondary target was about twenty minutes away. Cloud cover and smoke from raids the previous night in Yahata obscured the target area. Although she had radar targeting to guide the bombing run, her crew had strict orders to deliver the bomb visually. Unable to get a clear view in their bombsite after three passes, the mission at Kokura was scrubbed. So, she had turned. The two escort B-29s trailing her changed course to follow.  The sound of their moaning engines dissipated as they drew away.  The guns at Yahata fell silent, shouting no more.  In time, the sirens became mute.

Grandfather let out a little relieved sigh, “Listen Yukina, do you hear? The planes are going away. It is going to be alright. We have all the time in the world, little flower,” said Grandfather, “All the time in the world.”