Yuki Yamamoto becomes the luckiest man in Japan
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Yuki Yamamoto, a 22-year-old fireman, beat more than 5,000 runners to be crowned the “luckiest man of the new year” during a race at Japan’s Nishinomiya Shrine. The annual Lucky Man Run has been staged for more than 100 years at the Shinto shrine located in the southern part of Japan’s main island of Honshu.
Leonard James McNeill American Hero
The pictures are part of Leonard's personal effects that the government sent home.
The B-29 super-fortress Z-11 serial #44-69666 was shot down while bombing Tokyo on the night of April 2, 1945.
What is known, from the account of the Law crew's lone survivor, right gunner Sgt Ray Hopper, is that Z-11 was hit in the right wing by anti-aircraft fire while on the bomb run. As burning fuel poured from the ruptured wing tanks, Law ordered the crew to prepare to bail out and jettisoned the bombs. Then the B-29 was hit again by flak in the rear fuselage. After a futile effort to put out the fire by climbing and then diving, Law gave the order he never wanted to give and told the crew to bail out.
All five men in the rear of the plane got out, but there was a complication up front. The nose wheel had to lowered so the men could exit thru the nose wheel hatch, but the electrical switch malfunctioned and the wheel had to be cranked down by hand. (It is unknown why the men did not go out the forward bomb bay door instead.) Five of the six men in the front compartment made it out, the last being the copilot, 2/Lt Gerould Giddings. Giddings looked back up to see if Law got out, but the plane exploded before he did so. Hopper also saw the plane explode as he was descending in his parachute. Law's badly burned body was later found in the wreckage of the plane, which crashed near Haramachida. His remains were placed in Younji temple by locals and recovered by US forces after the war.
The ten crew members who managed to bail out all reached the ground safely and were taken prisoner, but since they came down in different locations and were kept apart by the Japanese, none of them knew for a while how many had survived. Hopper initially tried to evade capture but there were too many soldiers and civilians in the area. He was seen by four soldiers as he was crossing a rice paddy. Caught out in the open with no place to hide, Hopper wisely put up his hands and surrendered. The soldiers took his jacket, watch, wallet and .45 pistol, then blindfolded him and tied his hands behind his back. One of the soldiers fired Hopper's pistol four times into the air. Hopper thought the next bullet would be for him, but the soldiers just led him away. They did not abuse him but many civilians along the way did. Hopper was hit by sticks and rocks and was painfully pinched. Someone kicked him so hard in the left leg that the resulting sore took six weeks to heal.
It took most of the day for Hopper and his captors to reach their destination, which turned out to be Kempei Tai Headquarters. Here the young airman was thrown into a cell and beaten with bamboo sticks. Late that afternoon he was subjected to his first interrogation. According to Hopper, the men had been told in mission briefings that if captured they were permitted to tell the Japanese whatever they wanted, because at this time in the war it wouldn't make any difference.
That evening Hopper was put into another cell with a Japanese civilian and given his first meal, which featured fish heads. He didn't eat much of it. During the week they were together, the civilian never said a word to Hopper.
A few days later, Hopper heard a familiar voice respond to a guard's question. It was the first he knew that other members of his crew had survived and were in the building. Some days after that, Hopper was moved to a wooden building they called the “Pig Pen”. There were six cells in this building and Hopper was put into one with four of his crewmates. The five other survivors of the crew were in the next cell. It was a happy reunion. The men weren't supposed to talk but they found ways to do so. It was here that Hopper learned of Law's presumed death and other details.
Unaccountably, only a few days after being reunited with his crew, Hopper was transferred to Omori prison camp south of Tokyo. He never knew why, but it saved his life, because the rest of the crew were transferred to Tokyo Military Prison, where on the night of 25-26 May, during a fire raid, the Japanese guards left the prisoners locked in their cells to burn to death.