It was rainy day in April. 43 year-
old Kamata Arashino and her three children were hiding with 130 other
villagers in a cramped cave. Five days earlier, American troops had
stormed Ie-jima and had killed nearly half of the island's population.
Battle ships were shelling the island from offshore. The only hope for
these poor peasants was to take shelter here - if the American soldiers
captured them, rumor had it, they'd be tortured to death. In that
event, villagers had a suicide bomb they could explode for a painless
ending. And now, the America troops were advancing toward the cave.
The villagers made a hasty decision to detonate the bomb. But Kamata
decided that she wanted to live. Before she and her family could escape
there was a white flash, an ear-shattering blast and the cave's roof
collapsed...
