Remembering the 1886 Sinking of the Normanton (ノルマントン号事件)- in which the British Captain and European Crew Abandoned Ship, Leaving all Asian (including all 25 Japanese) Passengers to Drown
Stone Monument in Wakayama Prefecture to the 25 Japanese who drowned when the British ship the Normanton went down. The incident caused widespread outrage in Japan. Not only did the British captain and his crew abandon ship leaving the Japanese passengers to their fate, but at a hearing held at the British Consulate in Kobe, they were all found innocent of any negligence (they claimed the Japanese understood no English!). The public outcry was such that the British agreed to a retrial at their consulate in Yokohama where the captain was given a three-month sentence. No compensation of any sort was ever offered the bereaved families. Now nearly forgotten, the Normanton Incident made it clear to the Japanese public that it was necessary to revise the unequal treaties imposed on Japan by the Western powers in the late 1850`s.
By Avi Landau
I am an atrocious typist. In fact the word TYPIST should not even be used when referring to a person with the poor keyboard skills that I have. It would probably be best just to say that when it comes to typing- I stink. You should not be surprised then, that when I took on the task of translating into English one of world-renowned author Junichi Saga`s still untranslated books*, that I did so with paper and pen.
Naturally, when I completed the English version, I felt a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, though all I actually had to show for all the work was a color-faded plastic shopping bag stuffed with hundreds of loose sheets of paper. Fortunately I had remembered to number (most of) them!
Because of my TYPOPHOBIA, it took me a few months to build up enough resolve to start inputting the text onto my computer. Much more pain-staking for me than the actual translation work itself, I spent every free hour, for months, going through the repeated process of examining a few words of my scrawl, and then SEARCHING AND PECKING at the keyboard. It was a tedious and dizzying experience – a real come-down after the challenge and thrill of translation.
Making it all the more depressing, was the TV news I would often hear wafting in from the next room while I was at work. First there was the baffling disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, and then the tragic sinking of the Korean ferry Sewol, in which more than 300 high school students had gone down with the ship.
Making this disaster even more painful for Koreans was the mishandling of what should have been a routine rescue effort – and even more so by the fact that the captain and crew had escaped the sinking ship, saving themselves while leaving the students to drown on the doomed ship.
Even when I was not at work typing, while I was out about town, it was the Sewol story which dominated conversation. No one could fathom how the captain and crew could have left those students on board telling them to stay where they were, while they themselves snuck off incognito (the captain in his underwear) to safety.
A sign next to the stone monument reads: The British freighter the Normanton (1533 tons) sank on January 24th 1886. Twenty-five Japanese were left on board to drown as the British crew used the lifeboats for themselves alone. Because the Tokkaido Railroad had still not been completed, at that time it was common for foreign freighters like the Normanton to carry passengers between Kobe and Yokohama. Two months after the tragedy, skin divers from the Amagusa Islands were able to locate the wreck, but it was not possible to salvage it or recover the bodies of the dead. This monument to the wreck was erected by the daughter of Yatani Jiro, one of the passengers who drowned when the ship went down
Then one night, right in the midst of all the unfolding of this and the continued debate about the behavior of the captain and crew, I came to a passage in my translation which I had completely forgotten about. My curiosity was peaked as I typed out these sentences I had translated months earlier:
“Mother was sitting beside the PECHKA (traditional Russian stove) and singing softly. The words went something like: “The foreign ships are well-known, we were led on board, and taken far from the shore…..” It was a song that was very popular at the time, about a famous incident that occurred in the 1880`s. There had been a British passenger ship- The Normanton- which sank. There were many Japanese on board who perished. She was singing that song. I stood in the darkness of the late night and listened as she repeated it over and over again.”
A sunken ship! What a coincidence! But when I did a little web surfing to find out more about what had happened at that time, I realized the coincidence was much greater than I had first thought- the sinking of the Normanton in 1886 also involved a captain, in this case a British captain, abandoning ship and leaving his passengers behind to drown!
You can read more about the all but forgotten Normanton Incident here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normanton_Incident
and listen to the song the boy (Susumu Saga) heard his mother singing that night in Siberia way back in 1920 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36X0j_DjJkE
Here are the some of the lyrics translated into English:
The roar of the waves pounding against the shore Awoken from a dream by a storm in the dead of night Staring out at the great blue expanse Wondering where the hell my fellow countrymen are
Try to call out, try to shout, but I have no voice I seek and search but find not even a shadow If the rumors are true, the passing moon and twenty-five of our dearest brethren set sail
Godspeed your journey as the crow flies We know a little bit about foreign ships And we know those built by Brits Are famed for their nautical prowess
Like lambs, we were led aboard the vessel we passed all too quickly the 300 kilometers of distant wake and water to old Totomi only to reach Kumano Inlet in Kishuu
and then in the middle takes a surprising turn:[4]
O, the inhumanity of this foreign ship The cruel and merciless captain Whose very name reeks of cowardice Watched their sorrowful plight from afar
Forgetting all of his responsibility Hey made fast for a cowardly retreat Dragging his men along with him They jumped aboard the lifeboats
They see each others shadows off Tears of regret cutting quick and deep They wipe them down and fight them off You’re a hateful bastard, Drake
No matter how different your race may be No matter how little you know of mercy You just stood by and watched You left us there to die, you coward
The photos I have used in this post were uploaded from the following site. Go to it for more images of the Monument to the Normanton Incident:
http://ameblo.jp/pekopokopupu/entry-11619097489.html
* HYOSETSU NO BAIKAL (氷雪のバイカル) which can be literally translated as the “Frost and Snows of Baikal” is the true story of a Japanese family (the author`s own grandparents and father) that went off to live in Siberia just after the Russian Revolution. My English version was released under the title: “Susumu’s Saga”.
Postscript
Just today (Dec. 12, 2020) I found an old Japanese film on youtube called: Masquerade – Secret of the M.S. Normanton Incident (仮面の舞踏ー秘話ノルマントン号事件) which was made in 1943 (in Japanese only – with no subtitles)
Once again, real life seems stranger than fiction. On the afternoon of February 8th 2021, I was with a friend who was checking the news on his smartphone as we strolled along. He suddenly showed me his screed and said, “How`s this for a bummer? Imagine you were on a ship, sailing a gentle sea, under clear skies – without a care in the world – when all of a sudden BAM, a huge naval submarine pops out from the ocean depths and crashes into you! That would scare the crap out of you, ay? And what are the odds of it happening?”
He was talking about an incident that had occurred earlier that day off the coast of Japan`s Kochi Prefecture. One of Japan`s Marine Self Defense Force subs had hit a commercial ship as it surfaced. While there was damage and injures, no one, apparently, had been killed.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/02/08/national/japan-submarine-accident-kochi/
When he told me the story though, I immediately reminded him that a similar incident, with far more tragic results, had occurred some years back off the coast of Oahu (I couldn`t recall exactly when) involving an American naval submarine and the Ehime Maru, a training ship that was carrying Japanese high school students. Nine Japanese died as a result of being rammed by the surfacing sub.
The amazing thing was though, that when I checked my own smartphone to get more details about that tragedy – I discovered an amazing coincidence. The incredibly rare submarine collision of 2021, happened one day before the 20th anniversary of the Ehime Maru incident!
So the events of February 9th 2001 were certainly on certain people`s minds when the recent accident occurred. In fact, the Captain of the sub that hit, finally, after 20 years of silence, issued an apology for what had happened. He was probably thinking back on what had happened 20 years ago as the vessels as the two vessels collided off the coast of Kochi on February 8th 2021. How`s that for a coincidence.
I hadn`t thought about the Ehime Maru in a very long time – but I did, the other day. Not only was it a terrible (and very unlucky) tragedy (as my friend had said, “what are the odds of it happening?”), but it also reminds me, in a way of the Normanton Incident – in the arrogance of the Westerners towards the Japanese. What stood out for me most blatantly at the time (as someone sensitive to cultural differences)was how the American side took the bereaved Japanese families ‘ request for the remains of the dead to be recovered as some sort of act of resentment – they didn`t understand how important it is for the Japanese to have the physical remains to perform funeral rites and to achieve closure (though the US military should know that groups of Japanese veterans etc. have for the past 70 years been scouring the whole of the WWII Pacific Theater for any remains they might find for burial in Japan.
Anyway, after 20 YEARS, the Captain of the Sub has finally admitted his responsibility (who else’s could it have been?)and some closure has been achieved – with a little dramatic emphasis added on by the bizarre coincidence of another
submarine/ civilian vessel collision occurring 20 years later (almost) to the day!
This story is turning into something of a KARMIC DRAMA! The Prime Minister of Japan at the time of the Ehime Maru Incident (February 9, 2001) happened to have been Yoshiro Mori. When news of the disaster was brought to him, he was playing golf – but instead of rushing off to deal with the situation right away, he resumed his game. People were not happy and he was forced to resign after 1 year and 22 days in office.
Then time passed – and Mr. Mori had been out of mind for nearly 20 years. But just as the 20 Anniversary of the Ehime Maru Incident (which hardly anyone was aware of) came rolling around, the former prime minister found himself in hot water again, in his new role as President of the Tokyo Olympics Organizing Committee. He had made some dumb sexist remarks. The pressure on him to resign started to build. Then the day before the Ehime Maru Accident’s 20th Anniversary, there was a similar submarine accident, involving a fishing boat, that took place off the coast of Kochi – reminding many of the long forgotten Ehime Maru. The following day, the American captain of the sub that rammed into the Ehime Maru made the news by finally accepting responsibility for what happened.
Then, with the pressure building on him (though no one in the press ever mentioned his connection to the Ehime Maru), former Prime Minister Mori resigned from the Olympic Committee.
As I said in my last comment on this subject – life can be much stranger than fiction – especially when KARMA (apparently) comes into play!