Issue Date: 11 / 2004

Tsuneko, Heroine of the Untold World War II Tsushima Maru Tragedy

Tsuneko Maria Miyagi Bartruff (right) sits with Hisashi Teruya (whom she saved when he was four years old during the Tsushima Maru tragedy) and Keiko Taira (her younger sister) as they display a peace poster created by an American Sunday School class. (Dave Bartruff)        Pretty, bright-eyed Tsuneko Miyagi could hardly contain her joy. For the first time in her young life, she was about to go abroad. The 13-year-old high school girl was embarking on an ocean voyage that would take her northward nearly 500 miles - far from the tropical coral reefs that surround the sandy shores of her native Okinawa - to Kyushu, one of the four main islands of Japan.                Better yet, she was not traveling alone. On deck with Tsuneko were her favorite grandmother, her 11-year-old brother, 8-year-old sister, and the fiancee of her eldest brother. Joining them were many teachers and students from schools across her island homeland, including elderly folks like her grandmother.                Nearly half of the 1,660 passengers sailing with Tsuneko were students ranging in age from 7 to 15 years; 826 children in all. Nearly everyone else on board, young and old alike, were leaving home for the first time as well. The students, especially, were filled with great expectation, since it was to be their first opportunity to see snow or ride aboard a train, experiences their small native island did not provide.                Little did Tsuneko and her shipmates realize, however, that the 6,745-ton vessel named the Tsushima Maru on which they were steaming out of port on August 21,1944, would within hours become one of the most monumental maritime catastrophes of the entire Second World War.                At sea tomorrow, the vessel, a 30-year-old cargo ship would be torpedoed by an American submarine, the USS Bowfin, and within 12 minutes, it would explode, break in two and sink with the loss of 1,508 lives, including two of her own family along with 42 members from her home village.                Tsushima Maru versus Titanic                This World War II tragedy ranks in magnitude with the sinking of the world-renowned Titanic in 1912, which claimed 1,513 lives, yet thankfully yielded over 700 survivors.                The sinking of the Tsushima Maru, like the Titanic also occurred after dark (at 10:23 p.m.) but was complicated further since it took place in high seas caused by an approaching typhoon. Besides, under wartime circumstances, no rescue was attempted as the vessel went down even though it was sailing in a convoy. It was part of a five-ship flotilla made up of two other cargo ships and two Japanese naval escorts. As the broken Tsushima Maru plunged in flames into the deep, the rest of the convoy simply held course and steamed away from the tragedy.                The U.S. submarine also continued on its mission, never surfacing and knowing only that it had sunk an unmarked, unlighted cargo-passenger vessel sailing in a Japanese naval formation.                Because of these adverse circumstances, only 177 aboard the Tsushima Maru managed to escape with their lives.                What has made the Tsushima Maru's loss all the more tragic was the long sorrow of silence following the tragedy. All mention of its sinking was immediately suppressed by the Japanese wartime authorities. Survivors, including crew members were prohibited to talk about the episode under threat of severe punishment. No official inquiry was ever taken. The fate of passengers, dead or alive, was never communicated to their families. It took years after war's end, in the 1950s, before the tragedy was finally brought to light and the long sorrow of silence broken.                Follow up media coverage of the catastrophe prompted His Majesty Heisei, the Emperor of Japan to compose a Japanese waka poem based on the Tsushima Maru tragedy for his Year End Presentation to the Japanese people in 1997.                On the American side, too, it took more than 20 years for the crew of the Bowfin and the American public to learn of the Tsushima Maru's horrific loss, especially the death of the 767 children.                According to Charles Hinman, director of outreach and education of the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where the submarine is anchored as a floating museum, "You indeed have to count the Tsushima Maru as one of the major tragedies of World War II, considering the loss of over 700 children at one time."                The Japanese vessel was actually serving as an evacuation ship transporting Okinawan civilians out of harm's way as the war in the Pacific was advancing ever closer to the home islands of Japan itself.                The Japanese government's evacuation program, called gakudo sokai, was aimed at ensuring an adequate supply of future warriors for the military, and in Okinawa's case to free up food and other necessities for the military by reducing the civilian population prior to the last and bloodiest battle of World War II, the U.S. invasion of Okinawa. Nearly half a million Japanese children and their guardians had been relocated by late 1944 when the war was turning against Japan and the fear of invasion was imminent.                Just 59 of the Tsushima Maru children were saved--less than one in ten. Tsuneko Miyagi was one of these child survivors. But it took a high order of heroism for her to make it through to her rescue. Many, including young Tsuneko, who were wounded by the initial explosions, endured as many as seven days afloat in rough, shark-infested waters without food or drink.                Tsuneko spent four nights and three days submersed in the ocean with just her head and shoulders above water, while clinging to one of the few life rafts thrown overboard after the torpedoes hit. Initially, she was one of about 25 who clung to a single raft about the size of a dining table. By the fourth day adrift, only four of her comrades were left.                With bleeding wounds to her head and body, the 13-year-old's heroics began early in the ordeal.                She recalls in the wee hours of the first night at sea, just before the dawn of the second day, an object brushed by her leg under water. She was terrified that it was a shark, for the waters were teeming with them, and were attacking and killing survivors at will. However, this time Tsuneko decided to reach down; she caught hold of the arm of a small child, not knowing if the youngster were dead or alive or even a whole being.                She was able to bring up to the surface a young boy, Hisashi Teruya, about four years old, and placed him atop her raft. "He was still breathing, but had taken in a lot of water," she recalls.                Sixty years later at a Tsushima Maru reunion, she joined his family in a photograph. There were13 family members from three generations pictured along with Tsuneko. When I was shown the picture, I pondered that no one but Tsuneko would have been in that photo today if it wasn't for her initial childhood act of heroism.                On the morning of the second day adrift, Tsuneko, along with a Japanese soldier survivor, began an effort to collect and rope together other rafts and debris which were carrying victims in their vicinity. The idea was to make a larger single assemblage to be more easily spotted by aircraft and rescue boats.                Their efforts paid off as a Japanese reconnaissance plane flew over hours later filling the survivors with hope. Late in the afternoon, however, a giant wave "as tall as a three-story building" according to Tsuneko, swamped the flotilla and sent the assembled collection of rafts and debris in all directions, while drowning many.                Day Three turned to despair for the dwindling numbers of Tsuneko's companions as hunger, thirst, exposure, and the schools of sharks that surrounded them continued to take their toll. Tsuneko still bears the mark of a shark bite on her left thigh today.                Vision of hope                That evening, and in total darkness, a vision of redemption and hope appeared suddenly through the lens of her Christian faith to the weakening believer. She testified, "I saw a bright shining figure in glorious white silken robes walking upon the waves approaching us maybe100 meters away. The face was sad and full of tears, but I couldn't tell if it was that of Jesus or the Virgin Mary or God Almighty. Its lips were moving, but I was unable to hear anything. But just the same I understood it was a promise of hope that God was still with us."                Next day, in the morning of Day Four, another raft with survivors drifted nearby and was lashed to Tsuneko's float. Around noon, an object was spotted on the far horizon moving slowly toward them. Not knowing if it was friend or foe, the survivors laid low.                Seemingly after hours had passed, Tsuneko determined it was help indeed. There on the bow of a small PT boat was a sailor wearing only fundoshi, the traditional Japanese loincloth worn by men. With the aid of the surviving soldier, Tsuneko raised herself atop the bobbing rafts and waved naval S.O.S hand signals she had been taught at school. The fundoshi-clad seaman responded. And soon the five survivors were aboard the Japanese PT boat and heading toward dry land and an interlude of peace and safety. Tsuneko Bartruff stands next to an exhibit at the Tsushima Maru Memorial Museum showing the shark-infested waters the survivors had to brave. ( Dave Bartruff)                Upon her rest and recuperation on the island of Kyushu, the original destination of the ill-fated Tsushima Maru, Tsuneko was sent into harm's way again by military authorities to labor in an aircraft factory near Tokyo where kamikaze suicide planes were bring built during the final days of the war. Both the factory and her nearby residence were eventually destroyed in air raids, but she again rode out the storm this time on land: the consummate wartime survivor.                Sixty years to the day of its tragic sinking, on August 22, 2004, a beautiful new Tsushima Maru Memorial Museum and Hall was finally dedicated and opened in Naha, Okinawa. Among those honored and present at the ceremonies were nearly 30 living survivors of the once untold tragedy including Tsuneko Miyagi, now age 73.                Her poem, Tsushima Maru Requiem, set to music, was played as part of the opening day ceremonies. Selected verses:                Day ends beyond the endless ocean                A ship goes down, deep, deep beneath the waves                Tears of sorrow for days to come                A faint moon in the southern sky.                Tossed on the surf, a plover                Crying day after day, seeking forever                Staining her feathers in her children's crimson tide                Shielding them, never forgiving the war.                The spray of salt, the stars grieve                Shimmering shadows of a ship                Lives scattered far out over the sea                Departed souls commune with me                Departed souls at rest with God.                The inaugural ceremonies ended with the presentation of a Peace Poster created by American Sunday School children from the First Presbyterian Church of Petaluma, California, to the new museum. The museum's president, Masakatsu Takara, received the poster along with a donation from the children by a church elder.                According to Takara, who also serves as president of the Tsushima Maru Memorial Foundation, this was the first occasion in the 60-year history of annual memorial services that an American was invited to attend or participate. And that is because the Californian's wife of 45 years is the valiant adolescent heroine of the Tsushima Maru, Tsuneko Maria Miyagi Bartruff.                For more information on the Tsushima Maru, visit the museum's website:                http://www. tsushimamaru.or.jp email: info@tsushimamaru.or.jp                         And the website of the USS Bowfin:                 http://www.bowfin.org                 Recommended books:                 Maritime Disasters of WWII by George Duncan                 Worst Disasters at Sea by David Ritchie                 Dave Bartruff is an award-winning photojournalist who has traveled to more than 90 countries. Based in California, he has been a contributor to The World & I since 1987.