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Last Letters of Navy
Special Attack Corps (1971)
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Last Letter of Flight Petty Officer 1st Class Hiroshi Urakami to His Mother and Older Sister
At 2127 on May 24, 1945, Flight Petty Officer 1st Class Hiroshi Urakami took
off from Kushira Air Base as observer (included roles of navigator and
bombardier) in a two-man Shiragiku trainer carrying two 250-kg bombs. He
was a member of the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps 1st Tokushima Shiragiku
Squadron from Tokushima Naval Air Group. He died in a special (suicide) attack
off Okinawa at the age of 23. He was from Nagasaki Prefecture and was a member
of the 18th Otsu Class of the Navy's Yokaren (Preparatory Flight Training
Program).
He wrote the following final letter:
Dear Mother and Older Sister,
Now I depart for Okinawa.
There will certainly be an instant sinking with one plane for one ship.
It is now 30 minutes before departure.
Since I wrote quickly in the moonlight, the writing is messy, but please
forgive me.
May 24, 1945
Letter translated by Bill Gordon
July 2018
The letter comes from Matsugi
(1971, 113). The biographical information in the first paragraph comes from
Matsugi
(1971, 113) and Osuo (2005, 243).
Sources Cited
Matsugi, Fujio, ed. 1971. Kaigun tokubetsu kōgekitai no isho (Last letters of Navy Special Attack Corps).
Tōkyō: KK Bestsellers.
Osuo, Kazuhiko. 2005. Tokubetsu kōgekitai no kiroku (kaigun
hen) (Record of special attack corps (Navy)). Tōkyō: Kōjinsha.
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