Island of the Blue Dolphins

[maineSS]

Many years ago, I saw a movie entitled "Island of the Blue Dolphins" concerning a young (12 yr old) Indian girl who was left behind when her tribe abandoned their island. Recently, I saw one of the town librarians reading the book, so I checked out a copy and read the original story.

The girl dived off the ship that was taking her people to mainland California because she saw her younger brother was still ashore. The ship left as a storm was blowing in and never returned. The girl was left alone for 18 years with nothing but the clothes she swam ashore in.

Her brother was killed by a pack of wild dogs within the week, and she had to make everything needed for her survival from scratch. "Everything" meant items like stone knives, bone sewing needles, string, weapons, etc- all while finding enough food to live on. Making a bow, arrows, and spear was especially challenging, as she had never had any experience with it, but the alternative of becoming dog food concentrated the mind wonderfully. She also had to keep a low profile, since bands of Russian/Aleut sea otter hunters periodically visited the island, and had decimated her tribe to the point where they left.

She was left around 1835, and discovered in 1853 living alone with a dog in a hut wearing a dress of cormorant feathers. She overcame the dogs and stole their leader, built two separate homes, and made a seagoing canoe that allowed travel around the island. All in all, a most impressive example of positive thinking coupled with positive action.

When I see today's teens staring at their cell phones, I-pads, and video games, and hear today's adults whining about their lives and calling for their therapist- I have to wonder. I wonder how long they'd last in a similar situation- a week, perhaps a month? Given the state of America, we may all get the chance to find out soon....

[Doc Dave]

That is a great story you tell.
Resourcefulness and a strong will are characteristics of some people, if they choose to use them. Most would have given up it sounds like.
I will check out the book.
On a similar note, have you read the book, Unbroken? Amazing, true story from WW2

[Bob Thompson]

Island of the blue dolphins was a great book. I read it in grammar school. Unbroken is a book I discovered accidently a couple years ago thanks to NPR.
Both are great reading.
On the whole I'd rather take my chances with the sharks.
Thanks for the reminder Dave, there's someone I want to recommend that book to.

[maineSS]

I checked out "Unbroken", and saw it was by Laura Hillenbrand, who did a great job on "Seabiscuit".

The account of Zamperini's captivity in Japan was quite interesting- you can see why America at the time had no hesitation about using incendiary bombing and the atomic bomb. There were 48 more atomic bombs scheduled for production in 1945-6, and General Curtis Lemay had orders to drop them all.

There was a book entitled "Last Samuraii" that was written by a Japanese fighter pilot who was in Hiroshima watching the B-29 drop the bomb. He had received his orders for a Kamikaze attack to be carried out against the US Navy, and was visiting his sister for the last time. He saw the bomb separate from the plane, and then a giant flashbulb exploded in his face. He awoke later, buried under debris. He wandered for hours under a black rain, almost totally blind, seeking his sister. She was never found.

His account of flight training parallels Zamperini's experiences. The instructors beat the recruits viciously for the slightest infractions. One of his instructors almost drove him to suicide. The recruits also spiked the instructor's food with special additives, were found out, and paid the price. During flight intruction, the pilot forced his nemesis instructor to bail out of his plane to avoid being rammed, his life got extremely difficult after that.

Although the Atomic Bomb took many lives, it also saved many lives. The Allied POWs and the pilots scheduled for Kamikaze runs were spared, as were the lives of many Allied troops slated for the invasion of Japan. The speculation at the time was 1 million casualties for that endeavor, up to that point, America had only lost 250,000 in all Theatres of WW II.

[Doc Dave]

A few years ago an older man died here in our county. To most he was just another person in his mid eighties who passed.
I knew him as a long time client and friendly acquaintance, and in his latter years heard "his story".
He was taken prisoner on Guam a few days after Pearl Harbor. He got his first inkling of the Japanese savagery to come, with an incident there. The American soldiers were being lined up to board the troop transport to take them away to the Japanese prison camp. One of his fellow G.I.'s was married to a Guamanian girl. She and other women watched the process, and she pulled out a small American flag to cheer her husband as they were being led to the ship. A Japanese officer saw this, and immediately strode over and beheaded her with his sword in front of the horrified US prisoners.
Probably the only reason my friend survived nearly 4 years as a POW, was that he worked on the docks unloading ships, not in the mines, etc.
The survival rate was very low for Allied prisoners of the Japanese, much lower than those captured by Germany, in comparison.
He also affirmed what others stated, that the Japanese had a "kill order" which said that the minute Allied soldiers landed on the Japanese main islands, all Allied prisoners would be immediately shot.
The assumption was that this was part of the planning for the all out "Armageddon - like" battle the Japanese were planning, where all Japanese including any former guards would fight to the death.
Also I wonder if they did not want there to be evidence of their torture of our prisoners to the liberators.
So, my friend said quite emphatically that the atomic bomb saved his as well as many hundreds (thousands?) of allied prisoner's lives.
This was in addition to what you mention as to the 1M allied soldier casualty estimate and multi million Japanese casualty estimate for a conventional conquest of Japan.
I sent a letter to the editor of the local paper after my friends death, describing what I just shared, with the comment that revisionist historians who criticize the US for using the bomb are really off base in light of the truth of the situation we faced then.

[maineSS]

The book I referred to was not "Last Samuraii", it was "Kamikaze", by Gordon Allred and Yasuo Kuwahara, published in 1957.

Kuwahara was 15 years old when he entered Japan's Army Air Forces. He was the national glider pilot champion, and had dreams of becoming a fighter pilot.

His Basic Training regime was sufficently brutal to provoke the suicide of nine cadets. Several others deserted, were caught, and sent to punishment camps, never to be seen again. His three instructors were nicknamed the Pig, the Snake, and the Mantis, the last being Kuwahara's personal nightmare.

Some of the things mentioned in "Unbroken" were also echoed in "Kamikaze", such as lining up men in two rows and having them punch each other in the face. For variety, the instructors would have them face the barracks, so their faces could be slammed into the wall. The Mantis had a bullwhip he employed with great skill, the Pig preferred a club.

One night, Kuwahara and his friends "borrowed" sixty sewing needles from another squadron, stuck them point upwards in the Mantis's mattress, and remade the bed. Next morning, the Mantis summoned them to his room. Sixty needles were stuck into his table, neatly arranged into four rows. After discovering that everyone's sewing kit had a needle, he took all sixty cadets to a two seater plane. Each one had to take a violent aerobatic ride in an open cockpit- with no safety belt. Kuwahara almost fell to his death.

Definitely an interesting read from the other side.

[Doc Dave]

Yes,
I got the impression from Unbroken that the Japanese soldiers, having been brutalized in their training, were turned into beings almost like automatons, not questioning any order in spite of it being against any moral precepts.
Your comment about the Japanese book Kamikaze confirms this.
When people are physically abused and dehumanized to a large extent, it allows them to in turn look at an "enemy" as subhuman, and thus subject to abuses that a person would not be exposed to.