紙片の日本史
Fragments of Japan
Kura ・ Fragments of Japan #014 ・ In more detail

“Please, never show this to anyone”
——Hayashi Ichizō's letter, two days before the sortie, as printed in the book

Hayashi Ichizō. Born 6 February 1922, a man of Fukuoka Prefecture. He went from the faculty of economics of Kyoto Imperial University into the navy in the student mobilization, and died on 12 April 1945. In the words of the record as printed: “killed in a special attack (tokkō) in the Nansei Islands area.” Counting from his date of birth and the date of his death, he was twenty-three.

His mother had been against his volunteering. The son pushed past her objection, volunteered, was chosen, and two days before the sortie he wrote a letter — to that very mother. What is written in it is not an apology, nor a justification, nor fine words of farewell.

This page is a place to retrace, with verifiable facts, what the film could not tell. We print the letter in full, as it appears in the book. This is because the copyright term on his own writing has expired (⑤-6).

① The letter — as printed in the book

The source is pp. 186–189 of Aa Dōki no Sakura, a collection of posthumous writings compiled by the Fourteenth Class Association (Kōjinsha NF Bunko). What we have is this book, in print; we have not been able to see the letter itself — the paper⚪️ Unverified. What follows is a transcription checked character by character against the pages of that book, here rendered into English. The line breaks and paragraphs follow the book; no bracketed insertions and no elisions have been used.

The entry beside his name, as printed in the book

Hayashi Ichizō
Born 6 February 1922 ・ Fukuoka Prefecture ・ Faculty of Economics, Kyoto Imperial University ・ 12 April 1945, killed in a special attack (tokkō) in the Nansei Islands area (Kamikaze Special Attack Corps, Dai-2 Shichishō Unit)

⚠️The place of death is written as “the Nansei Islands area” — the word “area” is part of the record's own wording, and no stretch of sea is specified. This page keeps the record's wording as it stands (⑤-2). What the “Dai-2” (No. 2) in “Dai-2 Shichishō Unit” refers to, we could not verify⚪️ Unverified.

April 1945 (a letter, from the Genzan Air Group)

Mother, the time has come at last when I must send you sad news.

A child thinks of the parent, but deeper still is the parent's heart — how will they hear the tidings that come today

This poem comes to me now, keenly.

Truly, I was happy. I got my own way in everything, didn't I. But please think of that too as my leaning on you like a child, and forgive me.

To be chosen, in full honour, as a member of the special attack (tokkō) unit and to go out is a joy, but when I think of you, Mother, the tears come.

When I think how you raised me with all your strength, Mum, with me as your one hope, it is hard that I go and die without being able to make you glad in anything, without being able to set your mind at rest.

I am a poor son, but to say to you, Mum, give me up — to say, be glad that he died a fine death — that I simply cannot do. But I will not say too much of this.

Because you know my feelings well, Mum.

About the engagement and the rest of it — by the time your second letter reached me I already understood, but I could not bring myself to refuse. I still wanted to be indulged by you, Mum.

Nothing has made me as glad as your letters of late. I wanted to meet you once and talk quietly, and after all I wanted to be held by you and sleep, but Moji was the last time. I am writing this letter with the sortie two days from now.

It may be that I will pass over Hakata, so I am looking forward to that. Thinking to say my goodbye from afar.

I could not see my elder sister 千代子 either, and I am sorry, because I wanted to thank her. The care my family took over me when I sat the examination for the higher school comes back to me now, together with the house in Miyazaki-machi.

Mum, I went against what you told me to do, and I have come this far. For my own part I want to think that it went as I hoped and that I am glad, but I also think it might have been better to do as you said.

But I am being chosen as one of outstanding skill, so please be glad. With flying hours like ours, to go out to the front line is really not possible.

Even if I die there is 満喜雄, and for you, Mother, I may be the more important one, but seen in a general way 満喜雄 too is a person who is in no way inferior when it comes to getting things done.

And there are my elder sisters 千代子 and 博子. And are there not dependable grandchildren as well? I will always be beside you, so please spend your days happily. What you enjoy, Mother, is what I enjoy. When you grieve, I grow sad too. Please live happily, together with everyone.

Now and then I am tempted by a sly thought, the thought of wanting to go back to your side, Mother, but this is a thing I must not do. When I was baptised, I was told to “die,” wasn't I. Before you are struck by an American bullet and die, you are killed by the hand of Him who saves you — that is what I was told, and I am remembering it now. Everything is in God's hands. For us who are under God, life and death in this world are not the question, are they.

Esu-sama (the Lord Jesus), too, prayed that it be done according to Thy will, did He not. These days I read the Bible every day. Because when I read it, I feel that I am near you, Mother.

I will carry the Bible and the hymnbook in the plane, and plunge in. And then the mission badge I was given by the principal, and the amulet you gave me, Mother.

The talk of marriage — it seems somehow as though I made fun of people, but things being as they are, please decline it for me, with my apologies. The will for it was there, after all. (If there had really been time, I thought I would marry and make you glad, Mother.)

Forgive me — this too I must say to you, Mother, but you forgive anything I have done, so I am at ease.

You are a great person, Mother. I always felt there was something in you I could never reach. You take painful things upon yourself and see them through. That is the part of you I could never imitate.

Your fault, Mother, is that you love your children too much, but it is unreasonable to call that a bad thing. Because I am the one who likes it.

You above all, Mother, and my brothers and sisters, and my friends, know me, so I can go with an easy heart.

I will pray to you, Mother, and plunge in. Because God always looks upon your prayers.

This letter I am entrusting to 梅野, to be handed to you, but please, never show it to anyone else. It is a shame, after all.

That I am to die soon somehow feels like someone else's affair. I feel that I can meet you again, Mother, at any time. Because when I think that we cannot meet, it really is sad.

Source = the letter of Hayashi Ichizō: Aa Dōki no Sakura, ed. the Fourteenth Class Association (Kōjinsha NF Bunko), pp. 186–189. The copyright term on the writing of Hayashi Ichizō (1922–1945) has expired. The transcription was made by enlarging images of the book's pages and checking them by eye (2 August 2026). ⚠️Nothing by the editors of that book — the commentary, the notes — is quoted here. Only his own text.

The wording follows exactly what is printed in the book. In the Japanese, “kudasai” is written in characters throughout, and “kurashite” carries no extra kana. Nothing has been tidied up to read more smoothly.
⚠️In the original he moves between two words for his mother — the ordinary okāsan and the childish kāchan. Here they are rendered “Mother” and “Mum,” so that the shift stays visible.

② From Fukuoka to Genzan — retracing the road

The key is as in ⑤. 🟢 = confirmed in more than one source / 🟡 = differs between sources, or carries no source note / ⚪️ = no backing obtained.

⚠️Where this letter was written has not been confirmed. The book's heading reads “from the Genzan Air Group, a letter,” but that is the name of the unit he belonged to, and does not necessarily indicate the place of writing. As the chronology above says, the aircraft were flown to Kanoya on 26 March, and the personnel too are said to have moved in the first days of April🟡 Disputed. The “Genzan” pin on the map is placed as the location of the unit. The “Kanoya” pin is placed as the airfield to which the unit's aircraft were flown — whether Hayashi Ichizō set out from there has not been confirmed.

Kami-me

A place that had been a training unit goes out to the sortie just as it is. …The ones teaching, and the ones learning, together.

③ Whose poem is the one he quotes?

At the very top of the letter, just below the opening line, a single poem is set down.

A child thinks of the parent, but deeper still is the parent's heart — how will they hear the tidings that come today

Source = Aa Dōki no Sakura, cited above, p. 186. The wording follows the book as printed.

He does not write whose poem it is. All that follows is “this poem comes to me now, keenly.”

This poem is handed down as one Yoshida Shōin wrote inside a letter of farewell to his family🟡 Disputed. Its date is given as the twentieth day of the tenth month of Ansei 6 (1859), and Shōin was executed at the Tenmachō prison on the twenty-seventh of the same month🟢 Confirmed. That would make it a poem written to his family just before the execution.

⚠️We do not write that “Hayashi quoted this poem with Shōin in mind.” He does not give the author's name, and where he learned the poem could not be confirmed⚪️ Unverified. To trace where a poem comes from, and to guess at the intention of the person quoting it, are two different things.
⚠️The kana wavers between the poem as it stands in Hayashi's letter (「今日のおとづれ何ときくらむ」) and the form current as Shōin's poem (「けふのおとずれ 何ときくらん」). The difference is in the Japanese spelling, and does not show in English. We do not decide which is correct. Also, the descriptions that give this poem as Shōin's carried no source note (see the key in ⑤).

④ The road this piece of paper travelled

Near the end of the letter, he writes how it is to be carried.

This letter I am entrusting to 梅野, to be handed to you, but please, never show it to anyone else. It is a shame, after all.

Source = Aa Dōki no Sakura, cited above, p. 189.

Not by post. He leaves it with a person named 梅野, and has it handed over. It is addressed to his mother, and he himself writes: do not show it to anyone else.

And this is as far as anything can be confirmed.

After the war this letter was gathered into Aa Dōki no Sakura, ed. the Fourteenth Class Association, and set in type🟢 Confirmed. That is why it can be read now.
⚠️Who the person named 梅野 was, how the letter was actually carried, and when it reached his mother, could not be confirmed from the material we have⚪️ Unverified. We do not write that it “arrived.” That it was put into a book is the only fact that can be confirmed. Where the letter itself — the paper — now is, we have not confirmed either.

The man who wrote it called this paper a “shame.” It went into a book at the hands of the association of his own class, and eighty years on it remains in a form that can still be read. The side treating what he called a shame as a record is not the side that wrote it.

Kami-me

The paper that said “do not show this” is the one that came the furthest.

⑤ In more detail — differing accounts

The key: 🟢 = confirmed in more than one source / 🟡 = differs between sources, or carries no source note / ⚪️ = no backing obtained. Where we do not know, we write that we do not know.

🟢 Confirmedconfirmed in more than one source 🟡 Disputeddiffers between sources, or carries no source note ⚪️ Unverifiedno backing obtained

1. His age is given as twenty-two in some sources and twenty-three in others 🟡 Disputed

What is printed in the book is only the date of birth (6 February 1922) and the date of death (12 April 1945); no age is given. Counted from those two, he was twenty-three in full years. Some sources write twenty-two, which appears to be a difference in how age is counted. This page gives the age in full years, counted from the dates.

2. We do not name a stretch of sea as the place of death 🟢 Confirmed

The words of the record as printed are “killed in a special attack (tokkō) in the Nansei Islands area.” The word “area” is part of the record's own wording, and it is not written in a way that identifies which stretch of sea. This page does not swap it for one of the narrower sea names one often sees. The pin on the map, too, is placed as a rough indication of that “area” over the sea (it is not an exact point).

3. There are two “Genzan Naval Air Groups” 🟢 Confirmed

Two units of the same name existed, in different periods. The first was formed in 1940 by reorganizing the 15th Air Group; in 1942 its fighter squadron was separated off as the 252nd Naval Air Group, and that same year it was renamed the 755th Naval Air Group. The second was newly formed on 15 August 1944, when the Genzan detachment of the Ōmura Naval Air Group was made independent — a training unit for fighter aircrew.

Everything here about 1945 is the second one. The war record of the first, and of the 252nd Naval Air Group, is not handled on this page at all. This is so that the records of a different unit are not mixed in merely because the name is the same.

4. The descriptions of the Genzan group in 1945 carry no source notes 🟡 Disputed

The date the Shichishō Unit was formed and the numbers of aircraft sortied in each operation (② and ⑥) are taken from the chronology placed in the “second Genzan Naval Air Group” section of the Japanese Wikipedia article “Genzan Naval Air Group.” The individual lines of that chronology carry no sources of their own. The head of the article still carries a notice that it “lacks footnotes” (May 2017), and while the references section lists the War History Series and other titles, which line rests on which book could not be traced.

So all of this is handled as 🟡. That is why the numbers are not stated strongly.

5. There is another “Hayashi” in this book 🟢 Confirmed

Aa Dōki no Sakura also contains the posthumous writings of Hayashi Tadao — a man who went from Kyoto Imperial University into the navy, known for Waga Inochi Getsumei ni Moyu. He is a different person. Same book, same university, same surname: a combination in which it is easy to confuse the two when working through sources. The verbatim text on this page is quoted after checking images of the pages at pp. 186–189.

6. The basis for quoting 🟢 Confirmed

The copyright term on the writing of Hayashi Ichizō (1922–1945) himself has expired. That is why the letter can be printed in full. On the other hand, the commentary, notes and headings by the editors of Aa Dōki no Sakura are a separate work. What this page quotes is only his own text and the entry beside his name as printed in the book; nothing written by the editors is quoted.

7. We do not show a photograph of his face ⚪️ Unverified

For portrait photographs of Hayashi Ichizō, we could not trace when they were first published, within what is publicly available. Judging the term of protection for a photograph under Japanese law requires the date of first publication, so we do not use photographs for which that cannot be confirmed. The paperback we have contains no frontispiece photograph either. If the rights can be confirmed, we will show one. Until then, we do not — that is how we work.

8. We have not read the posthumous collection Hi nari Tate nari ⚪️ Unverified

Hayashi Ichizō is said to have a collection of posthumous writings, including a diary, titled Hi nari Tate nari. We do not have it. This page and the film are built from the letter gathered into Aa Dōki no Sakura, and nothing else. We do not touch what is in the diary.

9. We have not confirmed the record from the mother's side ⚪️ Unverified

That “his mother was against his volunteering” is something that can be read from the line in the letter, “Mum, I went against what you told me to do, and I have come this far.” His mother, Hayashi Matsue (林マツヱ), is said to have left a memoir of her own, but we have confirmed neither where it is nor what is in it. Her reasons for objecting, and what happened after she received the letter, cannot be written on this page.

⑥ One last thing — the twelfth of April, nineteen aircraft

The letter was written two days before the sortie. Two days after it: 12 April 1945.

On that day, Operation Kikusui No. 2 was launched. The chronology has one line about it.

12 April — “Operation Kikusui No. 2” launched. 19 of the Shichishō Unit sortie. 2 aircraft return.

Source = the chronology in the Japanese Wikipedia article “Genzan Naval Air Group” > “second Genzan Naval Air Group” (accessed 2 August 2026). ⚠️This line carries no source of its own, and the article as a whole carries a notice that it “lacks footnotes.” The confidence level is 🟡 (⑤-4).

Nineteen aircraft went out, and two came back.

⚠️Whose aircraft those two were is not written. Nor is the reason they came back known (it is known that there were cases of turning back with engine trouble, but for this day that has not been confirmed⚪️ Unverified). What can be known is only the number that went out, and the number that returned. Hayashi Ichizō, in the record as printed, died on that same day.

On the same 12 April there was a sortie on the army's side as well. Anazawa Toshio of the 20th Shinbu Unit (from Kitakata, Fukushima; first class of the special flight officer cadets) went out from Chiran airfield🟡 Disputed. Army and navy, from separate bases, on the same date. His name is in the unit roster.

The roster of the Shinbu units — the names of that same 12 April (in Japanese) →

⑦ In closing

What is written in the letter is his mother, and almost nothing else. That he was happy; that he got his own way; that he wanted to be held and sleep; his sisters; the grandchildren; what he would carry in the plane — the Bible and the hymnbook, the badge he was given at school, the amulet from his mother. And in among them, one line: “I also think it might have been better to do as you said.” The choice, and the doubt about the choice, stand side by side on the same sheet of paper. He wrote both without erasing either, and at the end added: “please, never show this to anyone. It is a shame, after all.” That paper was made into a book at the hands of the association of his own class, and can now be read in full. What he called a shame — the leaning of a child — is what lasted eighty years.

⑧ About this page

The film and this page are made from the pages of a book the producer has to hand (Aa Dōki no Sakura, ed. the Fourteenth Class Association, Kōjinsha NF Bunko) and from publicly available information. The copyright term on the writing of Hayashi Ichizō himself has expired🟢 Confirmed. The verbatim text was transcribed by enlarging images of pp. 186–189 of that book and checking them by eye. No photograph of the letter itself — the paper — is used, because we have not confirmed where it is. As for the movements of the unit in 1945, parts of it rest on descriptions that carry no source notes, and those parts are marked 🟡 (⑤-4). Views on the language are welcome.

Sources

The verbatim text and the entry beside his name = the letter of Hayashi Ichizō: Aa Dōki no Sakura, ed. the Fourteenth Class Association (Kōjinsha NF Bunko), pp. 186–189 (the producer's own copy; the copyright term on his writing has expired).
The history of the unit and the operational dates in 1945 = Japanese Wikipedia, “Genzan Naval Air Group” (the “second Genzan Naval Air Group” section; accessed 2 August 2026) https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/元山海軍航空隊. ⚠️The lines of the chronology carry no individual sources, and the article carries a “lacks footnotes” notice = confidence 🟡.
Where the poem comes from = Japanese Wikipedia, “Yoshida Shōin” (the “Shōin's waka” section; accessed 2 August 2026). ⚠️No individual source is given for this particular poem = confidence 🟡. The date of the execution (the twenty-seventh day of the tenth month of Ansei 6) is from the body of the same article (where a source is given).
The army side on the same 12 April = the roster of the Shinbu units on this site (in Japanese; the underlying description is Japanese Wikipedia, “Shinbu units,” confidence 🟡).
⚠️Some English-language sites about the special attacks contain descriptions in which people appear to have been confused with one another; we have not consulted them.

This channel does all source selection, fact verification, and interpretation and final judgment of language by human hands. Parts of production (voice synthesis, image stylization, translation assistance) use AI. See our production principles.

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Watch & subscribe on YouTube → The roster of the Shinbu units (the same 12 April, in Japanese) → Tomorrow, one liberal departs (Uehara Ryoji, #001–004) → What the student mobilization was → Follow it on the map → The Kura (index) →

The facts in this article rest on the producer's own books and on publicly available information (the main sources are also in the video description). The copyright term on the writing of Hayashi Ichizō himself has expired. Descriptions for which a source note could not be confirmed are marked in the text with 🟡 or ⚪️.

Article text © 2026 紙片の日本史 / Fragments of Japan　・　Corrections of factual error: contact@fragmentsjapan.com