Returned letter Aug 11 15:11

A beautiful letter written by a female student is back in Japan. There is also a picture of a happy family. It was like a letter without a reader, without knowing who it would reach. Eventually those letters were never sent out. The situation is no longer available. (Daisuke Narita, Reporter, Network News Department)

Everyone

The letter that came back was written on Japanese paper with brushstrokes.

The contents are like New Year's Day such as the distribution of rice cakes and the visit to the Meiji Shrine.

A picture of a child wearing a colorful snowshoe is also included.

When I looked at the writing, it was "Emperor army everyone".

I want to deliver

The letter was sent by Margaret Stevenson, who lives in Australia. I found it among the belongings of my father who died in 2017.

His father, Frank, was the Sergeant of the British Army. During the Pacific War, he served in the Malay Peninsula.

It seems that the letter was sent from Japan to Japanese soldiers fighting on the overseas front.

I don't know how it got into Frank's hand.

Frank seems to have kept this letter, which he brought back from the battlefield, in an album.

When I was a kid, Stephenson also sometimes showed me letters, and I remembered that it was a very beautiful picture. When he found the letter in his relics, he strongly felt he wanted to deliver it to Japan.

"After my father's death, I took a letter back from England and asked a colleague to translate it and look for a museum. I returned to the country where this picture was drawn, and painted this picture. I've always wanted to get it to everyone again" (from Stevenson's email).

miracle

The name of the student at Kanto High School (now Kanto International High School) in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo was written on the sender and entrusted to the museum in Shibuya.

Keita Matsui, the curator of Shirane Memorial Shibuya Ward Folk Museum and Literature Museum, said that it was a valuable resource to understand the life of the common people.

Keita Matsui
"I was surprised to find that it was a miracle and I was in a good condition. The pictures convey my desire to feel home."

At the time, we were sending what was called a "consolation bag" containing daily necessities and amulets to units in the battlefield.

Matsui wondered if it was in it. However, I do not know in what circumstances it was actually written.

In June, a letter was sent to the museum when news was reported that the letter would be displayed in the museum, and it was reported that they were looking for the sender.

phone

"This letter was written by us."

The phone was from Toshie Shibuya, 95. Shibuya also attended the Kanto High School. "At the direction of the principal, all students wrote letters to the soldiers as part of the lesson." Shibuya taught me so.

He also taught me to use sturdy Japanese paper called Mino paper so that the letters wouldn't break, and to write everyday casual topics that could be the source of talk in the battlefield.

After visiting the Meiji Shrine with a letter, he put it in a hand-sewn comfort bag as the curator thought.

And I sent it with caramel and other sweets that I bought without knowing who it would reach.

Toshie Shibuya
“I was very fond of knowing that the letter came back in the news. At that time, it was natural to write such a letter. Everyone was writing so hard. Now, with the new coronavirus countermeasures I'm not going out, but I want to see the letter someday.''

Yoneko Takahashi

I also know when the letter was written. The clue is the content of the body of the letter.

"In the newspapers, there are photos of soldiers wearing mochi."

"Kadomatsu will be abolished and the money will be donated to the Navy."

When I looked up old newspaper articles, I found an article with the same content in January 1948. In addition, the sender of the letter was a female student of the "5th grade Takegumi."

I checked the graduate list of Kanto High School. The 5th grader who graduated in March 1948 had the same name.

I have come to understand that the letter was written by this female student in January, 1948.

The name of the student is "Yoneko Takahashi".

However, I couldn't find Mr. Takahashi.

Letter no longer written

A reader's unknown letter that Mr. Takahashi would have issued.

I also realized that I could no longer write these letters.

The one who taught me was Akiko Masushima, who is 91 years old, who is a third year junior of Takahashi at Kanto High School.

Masushima enrolled in 1964. I wrote about three letters a month to other soldiers with other students.

However, the war situation gradually deteriorates. From the summer of 1948 when I was in my third year, I started working at a munitions factory that makes weapons.

It is a student mobilization.

I can no longer afford to write a letter.

Mr. Fujimoto

In September 1945 of the following year, homeroom teacher Kaname Fujimoto decided to embark on a mission. I also remember having a send-off party.

There was a school at the time that copied Fujimoto in the middle. Although I tried to send it out with a smile, something serious was felt in everyone's facial expressions.

I also saw that the war was imminent.

Window glass with paper glued on the cross to reinforce it so that it will not break during an air strike. Looking at the feet, all of the female students wore them because they lacked supplies.

Ms. Akiko Masushima
"You look like a hachimaki. You wrote your address and name on the hachimaki so that you could identify yourself when you died. There was still a young child in the mission, Mr. Fujimoto, who returned from the battlefield. It never came.''

Ms. Akiko Masushima
"I can't think of a schoolgirl wearing a giraffe wrapped in a gown. But at that time it was normal. When I heard that my teacher died, I didn't shed tears. I died for the country. It was a natural era. It was completely different than it is now."

What is a war

Air raids are also becoming fierce.

Before dawn on March 10, 1945, it is said that 100,000 people have died and the Tokyo air raid is said.

The munitions factory that Masushima and his friends used to go to, Seikosha in Kinshicho, burns down.

However, the morning after the air raid, we head to the factory. I saw many bodies along the way.

There were many people who were injured and they treated me.

Two months later, this time we will have a hand raid on a mountain where Shibuya, Harajuku, Akasaka, etc. have been burned down. The school building of Kanto High School has been completely burned down.

It was a war that robbed people of their lives and their alma mater.

Akiko Masushima
"I was all informed that death had become insensitive to death, and everyone was educated as a matter of course. I am grateful that the letter came back, but this letter is absolutely war. I think it's like a lesson to tell you that you shouldn't do it.

The letter came back

A letter that came out of a time when people were killing each other and came back to a peaceful time. It was a painful memory that the letter evoked.

Although the letters that have been sent do not come back originally, thinking about why they have come back a long time this time, I strongly feel that it should not go back to the times like the past. There are so many people who have it, and I say they shouldn't forget the past, but I felt that there was definitely a past that I should never forget, and that I should have come back to report it again.

Network News Department Reporter
Daisuke Narita