かすむ思い出を未来につなぐ　-Mother’s memory of an airplane

飛行機に乗ったことのない母の思い出。宮城県の母の実家の近所に細倉という鉱山があり、広島、長崎への原爆投下後の1945年8月10日、米軍に爆撃されました。爆撃後、戦闘機が戻ってきたので、私の母と母の祖母は近くの橋の下に隠れていると、すぐ近くを操縦士が見えるほど地上スレスレに飛んでいったそうです。先の戦争では日本全国が空襲にさらされ、多くの一般市民が罹災しました。終戦間際は戦闘機が小さな町にまで爆撃に来るほどに、もう日本には制空権がなかったのです。

I write a memory of my mother who has not boarded an airplane. There is a mine called Hosokura near a house of mother in Miyagi. Hosokura was bombed on August 10, 1945 after the atom bomb throwing down to Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States Armed Forces. Because a fighter returned after bombing, my mother and grandmother hid under the bridge nearby. According to mother, the fighter flew in the low altitude then to the neighborhood so that mother could see a pilot. Many places of Japan met an air raid in the former war, and many citizens suffered. Japan did not have the command of the air so that a fighter came to the small town for bombing just before that the end of the war.細倉は当時全国有数の鉛、亜鉛の産出地として三菱資本で経営されていました。今はもうなくなってしまった栗原電鉄も鉱山のために敷かれた私鉄で、東北線石越駅から細倉までの単線で、私も乗車したことがあります。細倉鉱山は戦中は軍の管轄下に置かれ、日本に連れてこられた米軍捕虜の方々も強制労働に駆り出されてところです。母の実家はこの栗原電鉄沿いの旧金成町沢辺にありました。空襲当時は祖母の住む鳥矢崎というところにいたとのことです。細倉空襲には爆撃機が来たとの話もありますが、母は小さい飛行機が低く飛んで行ったと言ってます。いったい真実はどうなのかと思っていたら、ネットで花巻空襲の記事を発見、空母ハンコックの飛行隊の戦闘報告書が見つかり、細倉空襲もその飛行隊が関わったようです。空襲には海軍艦載機もいて、母の遭遇したのは艦上戦闘機と思われます。母の記憶は間違いではなさそうです。当時のハンコックの係留地点はわかりませんが、大型爆撃機は当時占領されてしまった硫黄島あたりから飛んできて、航続距離の短い戦闘機は空母からの支援だと推察されます。爆撃機が南に去り、母の見た飛行機が細倉からの向きで東方向ですので日本列島東部太平洋上の空母への別ルートでの帰還と思います。勝田の艦砲射撃等、すでにこの頃は米軍艦船が日本近海に接近していたのでしょう。

Hosokura was a mine of lead and zinc. Mitsubishi ran it. “Kurihara-Dentetsu” which there was not anymore was a train for mines. By local trains from Ishikoshi Station of the northeastern line to Hosokura, I have got it on, too. The Hosokura mine did it under the jurisdiction of the military in wartime. The captive people of the United States Armed Forces were made to labor forcibly there, too. Old Kannari-town Sawabe along “Kurihara-Dentetsu” had the house of my mother. At the time of air raid, mother was in the place called Toyasaki with the house of her grandmother. The Hosokura air raid has the talk of the eyewitness that a bomber flew. However, my mother said that a small airplane flew low. I found the article of the Hanamaki air raid on the Internet when I thought how was the truth. According to the article, the Hosokura air raid was listed in the battle report of the squadron of carrier Hancock, too. The air raid participates in the navy airplane and thinks what my mother met with to be the fighter. The memory of mother does not seem to be a mistake. I do not know the mooring spot of then Hancock, but I think that the large bomber flew from Iwo-jima. I guess that the fighter which aircraft kilometer performed has a short was support from a carrier. Many bombers leave for the south, and I think that it flew towards carrier Hancock on the Pacific of the east bank of the Japanese Islands because it is the east of Hosokura that my mother met with an airplane. As for the bombardment from a warship to Katsuta, United States Armed Forces vessels has already closed the Japanese sea near the shore these days.戦前戦中、日本の航空機技術は高い水準にありました。二宮忠八の進言に長岡外史が耳を貸していれば、ライト兄弟に先んじて日本人が最初に空を飛んでたかもしれません。「震電」を知ってますか？米軍の度重なる空襲に日本の迎撃隊は果敢に立ち向かいましたが、高速高高度での防空戦では多くが厳しい戦いを強いられたようです。そんな中で開発着手した迎撃戦闘機、いわゆる乙戦が「震電」です。「震電」は当時実用化されていなかった画期的な前翼型で、ジェット化の構想まであったようです。結局、試作後1945年8月3日福岡で初試験飛行を記録するも、実戦投入には間に合いませんでした。既に記したとおりその時には戦闘機までが日本本土に爆撃に来ていたのです。戦局大詰めで開発試作を進めた技術者達は、志半ばどんな心境で終戦を迎えたのでしょう。戦争とはむなしいものです。

The Japanese plane technology was the highest standard before a war until wartime. If Gaisi Nagaoka heard an opinion of Cyuhachi Ninomiya properly, a Japanese might fly in the sky in the human for the first time earlier than the Wright brothers. Do you know “Shinden?” The interception corps of Japan fought in the air raid of the United States Armed Forces bravely. However, most of interception corpses of Japan were sacrificed by an aerial dogfight of high speed and the substratospheric altitude. Fighter-interceptor which started development in such a hard fight, so-called “Otsu-sen” “are Shinden”. “Shinden” is the epoch-making previous wing type fighter which has not been yet put to practical use in those days. A jet seemed to fit the design of becoming it in “Shinden”. After having recorded the first test flight after trial manufacture in Fukuoka on August 3, 1945, it was the end of the war. When Japan developed “Shinden”, the fighter of the United States Armed Forces has already come to the Japanese Islands for bombing. What kind of states of mind would engineers who developed it be at the time of end of the war? The war is empty.戦後10年の空白により日本の航空機産業は停滞してしまいました。今年の9月にYS-11以来の国産旅客機、初のジェット機である「MRJ」が完成しました。しかし技術的問題でなかなか次の段階に進めないようです。日本の航空機産業は、戦後、優秀な技術者が他の業界に流れてしまったため、欧米に追いつくのに70年かかったということです。技術や優秀なスキルは、手放せば取り戻すのに多大な時間と労力を必要とするのです。優秀な人材を流出している現在のリストラも考え直すべきと思います。

The aircraft industry of Japan has been delayed by the blank of ten years after the war. “MRJ” which was a domestic passenger plane since YS-11, the first jet was completed in September of this year. However, there seems to be still a technical problem. Because an engineer disappeared as for the aircraft industry of Japan, it took 70 years for revival. If you lose a technique and experience, you need much time and labor to return it. I think that a company should reconsider the restructuring to lose an excellent human resource.

 - Sub-culture