First secretary of Japanese embassy of Washington DC, Koto Matsudaira’s testimony:

The funeral had been scheduled to finish sooner but the master of ceremony, an American pastor, delivered a very long message praising the noble character of late Major Shinjo. So I could not calm down my heart while wishing him to stop the message as soon as possible to no avail. I was just impatient, beecause I was supposed to go with Ambassador Nomura to the Secretary of State Hull to hand the ultimatum at 1 o’clock p.m., telling him to the effect that we could not help breaking the diplomatic relationship. But I was not able to leave the church no matter how I might try. So there was no choice but to postpone the meeting. The American pastor was reading aloud beautiful English poems of Major Shinjo’s own making one after another. He was mentioning how he had been mentally growing with age, while reading his open notebooks and praising his virtues in the highest possible terms. Then a radio message came in to us to the effect that Japan was attacking Pearl Harbor of Hawaii. But the pastor’s very beautiful and moving message was so impressive that the senior officers lost in it were silently waiting until it was finished in spite of my whispers asking them to stop the ceremony. As an officer in charge of peace negotiations, I had never been so anxious and worried. As soon as the funeral was finished, Ambassadors Nomura and Kurisu dashed at full speed toward the Department of State to meet the Secretary of State Hull. They handed the ultimatum to him, but he was understandably so furious with the “sneak attack without notification”. But the fact is that there was a pastor’s long funeral message behind scenes of the ex post facto notification. …

(Source: Tsuruichiro Inagaki, “Kenkichi Shinjo”, p. 146. Originally this text was reprinted from the magazine “Genshi Fukuin” No. 177.)

2010年3月5日