My name is Shiro Aray and I was born on March 27, 1925. My hometown is Edosaki, which is located in Inashiki District, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. I spent a normal childhood and I always used to get good scores at school.
We were five brothers and sisters and my eldest brother had his own textile business. My brother's business was suffering from the export ban so he had to give it up and become a policeman. I also moved to live with my brother and began studying in high school in Tokyo. At that time, the war was spreading around the globe rapidly. Therefore, the Japanese Army started accepting applications for the position of a soldier from individuals 18 years of age. The usual age for submitting an application for a soldier was 20 years before. At that time, I was 18 and a high school student so I applied for the military academy. I passed my test and started my training as a soldier. At the military academy, I observed that not only me, but also everyone else wanted to serve this country in the WWII. We all worked really hard during the training period and wanted to join our fellow soldiers in the war zone as soon as possible. One day, we were all gathered at the academy and our leader told us about the launch of a secret project by the Emperor. I always wanted to be a pilot so I thought that the secret project might include training for pilots. Therefore, I decided to volunteer for this secret mission and got selected. Approximately 200 soldiers were chosen and I was one of them. After our selection, we left the school but we didn't know exactly where we are being taken or what this secret mission is about. I was really hoping it would be related to flying. Soon I realized it wasn't. However, we left from the city called Tsuchiura located in Ibaraki Prefecture and took a train to Yokosuka. After arriving in Yokosuka, we began naval training. The exercises and drills were quite simpler and easier than the ones I had in the military academy. Then I finally found out that our secret mission was not all that I thought it was - I figured out it had something to do with motor boats. Those were fairly small boats we were practicing in and overall the operations seemed unambitious. However, the Japanese Army does not allow you to share your personal thoughts and opinions about any project or activity. Therefore, I kept my disappointment to myself.
Even though no one talked about it, Japan was loosing the war. We were also not that mighty in industrial terms - we didn't even have enough power to build decent motor for those boats. They converted old truck engines to be used on these boats. The whole secret operation was that the boat used to carry 250 kilograms of explosives and we were supposed to sail it to the American ships and blow it up as close to the target as we possibly could.
Our trainings went on until November 1944. At our graduation we were visited by a ember of an Emperor family and one of the Navy's top commanders. It was a memorable day for all of us. Each of us got honored by the Emperor's relative and given a special sword engraved with the names of Navy's top officials. The hilt was also embossed with a sentence "protect our country".
I was very happy to meet these people and all my initial discontent disappeared. It felt that we serve a purpose; we were about to embark on a mission blessed by the Emperor himself. Everyone felt quite patriotic and we honestly believed in our victory then.
After graduation, we were divided into four groups of 50 soldiers. The 50 members of my group were further divided into four subgroups and each subgroup had its own leader. We were then sent to different locations in the boats with our leaders. At first, we didn't know where we were heading but later we arrived in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture. However, we were still in the deep sea at Sasesbo when we started moving again along the coast of Korea and China. There were many American ships along the coast of China and we didn't know where exactly we are headed, but we knew that it was North of Taiwan. We were moving a lot from one base to another and spent few weeks at sea without any understand where we are going to end up and what our mission will be. Everything was under the seal of secrecy, which I understood. But I really wanted to be useful and finally see some action.
Eventually we came to know that our destination was the city of Keelung. Anyway, we all got off the boat and took a train towards the city to start building our base. The weather was good in Taiwan and I was feeling content that finally I would be able to represent my country in an actual battle.
At first I was mainly responsible for hiding the boats and building the base. It took us two months from December 1944 to January 1945 to build the Japanese base in Taiwan. Every day we used to perform rigorous exercises as part of our training. There were hot springs at a distance of 6 kilometers from the base and we used to go there every weekend. Our boats were not yet deployed to the actual fight so we were only practicing at the base.
At that time, the American soldiers were moving to Philippines after destroying Okinawa. On their way back, they bombed our base and continued bombing for a few weeks. However, we did not have any casualties. One night I was on a patrol duty on the beach, around our base, and an American plane flew by. Suddenly, the pilot started firing on the beach and one bullet hit the sand 2 meters away from me. I ran away into the forest and was able to escape. However, I caught malaria later and suffered from it for the whole month. I was being treated at the army hospital in Taiwan.
Later, a leader of the Japanese army from another city in Taiwan came to our base and announced the conclusion of the WWII. As you know, Japan had to surrender. We all felt absolutely empty. We were ashamed to loose the war and we were ashamed of the fact that we never took part in the missions we were trained for.
There were no boats to go back to Japan so we stayed there until further notice. We started to grow vegetables as we didn't know when we would be able to go back. We stayed there until December 1945. All of us were very disappointed, as we never thought that Japan would be defeated. At that time, our leaders also ordered us to throw our special swords in the sea so that the Chinese or American troops can't take them away from us. We had a fear of being captured by the Chinese or American troops. Thus, I believe that none of the 200 soldiers were able to bring back their sword to Japan and everybody threw it in the sea. Later, the Japanese army gathered us all in the same place and boarded us on the American ship to go back to Japan. It took us only 3 days to reach Japan in the American ship. On the contrary, it took us three weeks just to reach Taiwan in our boats from Japan.
The Americans took us to the port of Hiroshima from where I boarded the train back to my hometown. The Japanese army provided us the transport fare and food. However, I got to know that my hometown was completely destroyed by the American bombing. Somehow, I also got to know that my family was in a safe place with my relatives in another city. On the other hand, my family knew that I joined the secret mission of the army and they thought that I was dead. Of course, they all were very happy to see me alive as I was their only son who took part in the war. My elder brother was still working for the police and my younger brother was a junior high school student. After coming back to my country, I graduated from the University in Japan and begin working at a company in Ginza for three years. Later, I moved to the city of Fukuoka where I stayed for three years and then moved to Osaka and stayed there for six years. Finally, I got back to Tokyo and stayed there until my retirement at 60 years of age.
