Grrrrrrr. Since one of the links I posted appears dead already, here's the story that was in it. Apologies for taking up so much space.
Enemies once, Zenji Abe and Richard Fiske forsook hate and became friends
BY JAMES GONSER, Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
Sixty-three years ago, Japanese fighter pilot Zenji Abe was on an aircraft carrier headed for Pearl Harbor. Abe flew a Type 99 dive bomber in the second wave of attacks on Dec. 7, 1941 that brought the United States into World War II.
Yesterday, Abe was here on a peaceful mission, to leave flowers on the grave of his good friend Richard I. Fiske. Fiske was a veteran who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor and died in April.
Fiske's remains are at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl.
With his wife, daughter and son-in-law, Abe brought flowers and said a prayer to show his respect and admiration for the man he had become close to.
Wearing a grey suit and thick glasses, Abe, 88, visited the niche site with Fiske's remains. He placed flowers at the niche, rubbed the marker with his hand several times and prayed holding wooden beads. Abe was unable to attend the funeral service last spring.
The two men first met in 1991 on Abe's third trip to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial. Fiske had been a volunteer at the memorial since 1982.
Abe gave Fiske $300 and asked him to lay two roses at the memorial each month, one for the Japanese troops who died and one for the Americans. For the next 12 years, on the last Sunday of every month, Fiske fulfilled that duty and played taps.
"He worked so hard to make good relations between Hawai`i and Japan after Pearl Harbor," Abe said through a translator yesterday.
The last time the former enemies saw each other was at Pearl Harbor in December 2001 during ceremonies to mark the 60th anniversary of the surprise attack.
Fiske was 19 years old in 1941 and a Marine bugler serving his first assignment after boot camp and field music school aboard the USS West Virginia in Pearl Harbor. He was on the quarterdeck the morning of Dec. 7, the day nine Japanese torpedoes and two aerial bombs crashed into the battleship.
At his battle station, Fiske saw his captain killed. When the order came to abandon ship, he swam to Ford Island.
John DeVirgilio, who helps organize veteran get-togethers through the World War II American and Japanese Veterans Friendship Committee, accompanied the Abe family to Punchbowl yesterday. DeVirgilio said many veterans of that era found it very difficult to forgive their former enemies, but not Abe and Fiske.
"A good many, but not all, decided to shake hands and enjoy reconciliation and allow hate to leave their hearts," DeVirgilio said. "Although it is impossible to forget, it sure is possible to forgive."
Gene Castagnetti, director of the cemetery, said Fiske use to play taps at many military events including once on a trip to Hiroshima, Japan, where the United States dropped an atomic bomb near the end of the war.
"They both personified rising to the highest level of character," Castagnetti said. "Above and beyond the politics of life. They rose to the universal character of fairness and justice and respect for each other. It takes a strong person to do that."
For years, Abe and Fiske wrote letters and sent each other Christmas cards, often including photographs, Abe said. Fiske helped Japanese tourists at the memorial and showed them a photograph of his Japanese fighter pilot friend. Emperor Akihito gave Fiske a medal for his work mending relations between the two countries.
"Mr. Fiske said he was really proud of the work at Pearl Harbor," Abe said.
Fiske joined the Air Force in 1948 after completing aircraft and engine school and also receiving his private pilot's certificate. He also served during the Korean and Vietnam wars as a crew chief on KC-97 and KC-135 aircraft. Fiske retired from the Air Force in 1973 as a master sergeant.
Fiske had an ulcer operation in 1965, which he told The Advertiser in 2001 was brought on by bottling up hatred since the war.
"We still have Pearl Harbor survivors here that have that animosity, and it's no good. It almost killed me," Fiske said at the time. He said veterans who have reached out say, "My God, I don't want to go to the grave with this."
Abe, who also made a career of the military and retired as an admiral, is a retired senior managing director of the UBE Plastic Co. and lives in Tokyo.
Abe said even as he took off from the deck of the carrier Akagi during a second wave of attacks against U.S. warships in Pearl Harbor, he did not hate Americans, but was doing his duty.
"He couldn't refuse, that was his mission," said the interpreter. "He still feels sorry about the sudden attack."
