Stone gardens are an art form in themselves, different from other garden types and with distinctive features. As Stephen Mansfield shows in the early chapters of his book, the stone garden drew on diverse origins – animist use of sacred rocks and space; Chinese idealisations of nature; the Japanese preference for essentialism and representation; Daoist notions of the flow of energy; and bonseki, the setting of stones on trays.
Stones at Tenryu-ji. Photo courtesy of daderot on wikimedia commons.
The first mention of dry landscape
came in the 11th century in Sakuteiki, and a significant breakthrough was made
by Muso Soseki, founder of Tenryu-ji, who developed the idea of the
contemplative garden meant for entering visually rather than physically. Though
not mentioned by Mansfield, the creation by Soseki of the dry garden at Saiho-ji,
famous for its moss, offers an early example of a rock garden with mountain
river scenery and a large flat stone on which the designer sat in contemplation
of the scene below.
In terms of aesthetics, Mansfield
runs through the usual suspects – mujo (impermanence), yugen
(elegant profundity), mitate (creative reuse), wabi-sabi (rustic
simplicity) and yohaku no bi (literally, the beauty of extra white, i.e.
empty space). The latter is a key concept, though perhaps the least known
about.
The concept of a specifically ‘Zen
garden’ is said by Mansfield to have originated in the West with Lorraine
Kuck’s 1935 book, One Hundred Kyoto Gardens. Interestingly, it came out
at around the time of the ‘discovery’ of Ryoan-ji as a masterpiece. Like the
tea ceremony, also heavily influenced by
Zen, the stone garden has
developed an independent status and now extends far beyond Zen temples. In the
final section of the book, the author lists 15 outstanding examples of the art
form, only 6 of which are within the domain of Kyoto’s Rinzai Zen. One of them
indeed is in the Canadian Embassy!
Saiho-ji Gardens. Photo courtesy of Saigen Jiro on wikimedia commons.
Mansfield has evidently given much
thought to the subject, and he leaves the reader with much to ponder. ‘One of
the functions of the gardens is to bring us into alignment with nature, the
universe, our inner selves,’ he writes. There are numerous tips for helping us
see more clearly the art involved, and for those of us in Kyoto there is the
recommendation to get away from the crowds and go see Shogen-ji in Otsu. On the
other hand, considerable space is given to the Shigemori Mirei creations at
Matsuo Taisha shrine, which for anyone familiar with his work at Tofuku-ji must
surely be a disappointment.
The book provides much food for
thought, and and I found myself sufficiently stimulated to want to ask further
questions. What is involved in the hira-niwa device? How did the
aesthetic of yohaku no bi develop and what does it involve? Why no
discussion of the Mt Horai garden with its crane and turtle features? Why no
mention of the third Shigemori garden at Matsuo Taisha or the West Garden at
Tofuku-ji? What underlies the Daoist insistence on odd numbers? What are the
best examples of stone gardens outside Japan?
How fortunate then that there will be a chance to put such questions directly to the author himself when he comes for a lunch talk with WiK on Sept 28th (members have priority). Stephen Mansfield is a prolific author and an influential photo-journalist whose work has appeared in some 60 different publications and who regularly reviews for the Japan Times. He’s recognised as one of the best contemporary writers on Japanese culture and apart from gardens he has written books on Tokyo and the Insight Guide to Japan. We’re very pleased therefore that he has agreed to take time out from his writing activities to come and talk to WiK.
Forsaking the farce of form and face Artists forced to raze the dominant paradigm Seizing the sense of silence and space
The painter replicates without a trace Fleeing frigid hue and spectral clime Forsaking the farce of form and face
The poet shuns a language of sonorous lace Refuses circumscription to rhythm and rhyme Seizing the sense of silence and space
Dancers undulate within the sky’s embrace Respond to a resonating pantomime Forsaking the farce of form and face
Musicians project a gait of staggering pace Spurn the tyranny of tone and time Seizing the sense of silence and space
Genius celebrates a fall from bogus grace Abandons the sensual for a soul sublime Forsaking the farce of form and face Seizing the sense of silence and space
—Preston Keido Houser
More poetry on the Writers in Kyoto page by Preston Houser can be found here.
Dougal McLeish had been staring out of his office window for a full hour, the yellowing light of an early autumnal evening creeping slowly across the cluttered desktop in front of him. Hands folded in his lap, shoulders sagging forward, his demeanour bore all the hallmarks of the dejected. Yet, there was no sadness in him, nor desire to wallow in self-pity. No, he was just tired, extremely and unutterably tired. Things had been a little trying of late, but Dougal was not a worrier. On the contrary, he liked to think of himself as the eternal optimist, the one others came to when a little boost of confidence was needed, a quick cheering up. If Dougal McLeish was tired, then he was simply that. Tired. Nothing more, nothing less. Well, that’s what he was telling himself anyway. He looked down at the paper on his desk again, and sighed deeply.
It hadn’t always been this way. When Dougal had first arrived at the cornucopia of concrete that formed the campus of Takano Junior College in northern Kyoto prefecture to take up his position a little over eighteen months before, he had been brimming over with energy and unbridled enthusiasm. Every waking moment and a fair proportion of his free time too, had been given over to the preparation and deliverance of what he believed to be pretty decent courses of study. Why, had not Professor Koizumi himself, the Dean of his faculty, commented on it personally at a chance meeting by the water cooler one lunchtime? Yes, there had been some recognition of his endeavours by his superiors it seemed, but not perhaps by those whose opinion mattered the most to him – his students.
Dougal was twenty-four years old. A little over six feet three inches tall, sandy haired, of rake like build, and by his own admission, pretty much unexceptional in just about every way. He had lived in the tiny Scottish Borders town of his birth for twenty-three of those years and had only ventured out of the area on two previous occasions. Once on a three-day high school trip to the distant metropolis of London, and once to attend the funeral of a maiden aunt he had never laid eyes on, and never would, now they had lowered her into the ground. He had earned his degree in Theology from a small, but respectable college in a larger neighbouring town, which had enabled him to stay in the warm embrace of his loving and very close family. This also allowed him to indulge in his other great passion, which was singing in the choir of his local church, of which his father was the venerable pastor. Dougal, as often said by those who knew and loved him, was an excellent student, a loyal son, a good Christian, and perhaps just a tad unworldly. That he had come to be teaching English to teenage Japanese, in Japan of all places, had surprised a considerable number of people, not least Dougal himself. The way this had come about in actuality was, however, really quite unremarkable.
A little over two years previously, the small town of Takano some way north of Kyoto City in western Japan had somehow found itself twinned with Glenruttock home of the extended McLeish family, among others. The locating of a gigantic new micro-processor plant operated by the Japanese NIHONTECH Corporation might have been part of the equation, and small groups of Japanese businessmen had been spotted swinging with abandon on both of the local golf courses. In light of these developments, Daddy McLeish, being a man of considerable stature in the local community, had therefore taken it upon himself to host an opposite number from Takano, when a delegation from that fine town had arrived on a goodwill visit. It was his civic and Christian duty, after all. Professor Koizumi had been their honoured guest, and had stayed in their humble abode for two weeks of a glorious Glenruttock summer. During this time, aside from revelling in the delights of the Scottish countryside, he had had ample time to size up the young Dougal McLeish.
It had appeared to him straight away that here was a young fellow who exhibited all the wonderful qualities he sought to bestow on his own youthful charges. Unfortunately, with each passing year, and new intake of students, those qualities seemed to be in ever decreasing supply. Low morality, appalling personal appearance, a genuine disregard for authority and seniority, and a general lack of common sense, the list, to Koizumi sensei at least, seemed to characterize the modern generation and was extremely depressing to an old schooler like himself. Well, if that was to be the new face of Japanese youth, then Koizumi had felt a need, nay, a compulsion to give it a serious makeover. And he was sure that fine, upstanding young gentlemen like Dougal McLeish would be his shock troops in the battles ahead. He had wasted no time in convincing Daddy McLeish of this, who had in turn persuaded Dougal of his duty as both a Christian and a Glenruttockian. After constant reassurances from the Japanese scholar that his complete lack of teaching experience would prove no barrier to a successful execution of his duties, Dougal was dispatched to the Land of the Rising Sun for the start of the next academic year.
Things had not really gone to plan since then, that much was true, but Dougal was nothing if not determined. He had received less support than he had hoped for from Professor Koizumi, who had seemed so enthusiastic on those inspirational nights filled with earnest conversation back in his father’s study. Over what, in retrospect, seemed a frighteningly large quantity of Daddy McLeish’s 20-year old single malt, he had laid down his vision of a new Takano Junior College, and Dougal’s part in it. However, since his arrival, other matters had seemed to take up an ever-increasing portion of his sponsor’s time, and Dougal had been left to spearhead a rather lonely campaign.
He felt alone, and much too young to be so. The students had turned out to be, on the whole, quite likeable, but he felt the distance between them and himself was growing immeasurably. They had nothing in common, even as young people. Their language, clothes, musical tastes and sense of fun were all dissimilar. But more than this, their attitude was different, and this was reflected mainly in their studies. They seemed to him to have more interest in pursuing non-academic interests than in the essential goal of acquiring knowledge. Dougal had attempted to understand it, attending school events and festivals, even consulting colleagues on the matter, many of whom had seemed at a loss to comprehend his concern, but things had slowly been building up to the point where he found himself today: close to defeat. The source of his malaise, at least in part, lay on the desk in front of him in the form of a single piece of paper.
There was nothing remarkable about it. A4 in size, white, with five words covering its surface. Two of the words were at the head of the sheet and spelled out a name: Tanaka Shu, the names reversed in the Japanese style, with the surname printed first. The other three words were entered about 4 centimetres south of these, written in pencil in the same drunken pre-schooler type scrawl as the former. These three words formed the legend: MONKEY WANT BANANA. Rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands and with an abrupt and fog clearing shake of the head, it was to this that he finally turned his attention. “Ah, Mr. Tanaka,” he murmured to himself. “Mr. Shu Tanaka”.
Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash
Though he taught an increasingly large number of students each semester, Dougal had no trouble conjuring up an image of the young man in question. Shu Tanaka was in his Thursday, Period Two, Second Year Writing class. The students in this class represented possibly the least motivated group of individuals in the entire college, ranging from the basically indifferent to the invisible. A turnout of over 50% for any one class could be considered a major attendance breakthrough. Shu Tanaka fell into the semi-visible group and stood out for one particular reason – he pretty much always sat alone. He was not a party to the incessant chattering that accompanied the best part of Dougal’s classes from the mid-classroom area, this being the domain of Emi Kimura and her make-up mirror, cell phone-wielding cohorts. Nor did he involve himself with the more boisterous activity displayed by some of the alpha males in the group. Shows of bravado, no doubt intended to secure the attentions of Emi and her style posse. Instead, hiding behind the fringe of a spectacular mop of frizzy, two-toned dyed hair, he would slump in his seat toward the back of the room busying himself with his cellphone. This, Dougal assumed, he had had to acquire by scraping together funds from an outrageously underpaid part-time job. Shu was not really then a problem student in a behavioural sense, he just seemed to lack, well, purpose.
This latest literary offering was probably the most pathetic attempt at descriptive writing that Dougal had received to date. But considering three-quarters of the class had failed to hand in anything at all by the deadline, he couldn’t really dismiss it out of hand. It would be impossible to grade, but it could be considered a foundation on which to build something a little more constructive – well, couldn’t it? MONKEY WANT BANANA.
The assignment had been,
to Dougal’s mind, a wonderful opportunity for the students to express
themselves. Selecting one photo from a
choice of three, depicting wild animals in their natural environment, the
students were to produce a paragraph of writing ‘through the animal’s eyes’. A stalking tiger, a soaring eagle, and the
close-up facial shot of a full-grown male chimpanzee, eyes burning with
intelligence and curiosity. How
liberating, he had thought, how tantalizing a chance to give freedom to the pen
and let your innermost feelings run wild by connecting with the wildest of the
wild themselves. One paragraph would
surely be far too limiting! How wrong he
had been.
He had received ten scraps of paper, all handwritten, and some barely legible. To find an adjective containing more than one syllable had been next to impossible. There simply had been no attempt at expression at all, unless the message behind each piece was a declaration of apathy. MONKEY WANT BANANA was minimal, fair enough, but displayed a factual simplicity that could not easily be ignored. Perhaps Shu Tanaka had really tried other routes then finally settled for the obvious. Yes, that may well be it, thought Dougal. He would have to have a little chat with him and get to the bottom of it. Suddenly animated, and curiously excited, he straightened in his chair and rubbed his hands together vigorously. He felt considerably better. That was it. Take control and approach them as individuals. Wonderful! The prospect of a protégé was appealing in the extreme.
The following Thursday morning, Shu Tanaka shuffled into Dougal’s classroom a little after ten past eleven. Shu knew he was an impressive twenty five minutes late and was quite surprised to see the nerdy, stringbean of a British teacher actually smile at him. Was he being sarcastic? He concluded not. He didn’t seem to have a sense of humour, this one. Shu had had a couple of foreign teachers before, and although their classes were equally mind-numbingly dull, they had at least raised the occasional chuckle from the pack. Avoiding any further eye contact with the teacher and moving at roughly the same speed as an octogenarian with a serious hemorrhoids problem, he covered the remaining distance to his favourite pew at the back of the room and flopped down onto the hard wooden seat. Without looking up, he opened the comic he had recovered from a waste bin moments before and proceeded to read.
Dougal had followed Shu’s progress to his seat and was now staring in that direction incredulously. Could this shambling fool really have been the focus of so much of his thinking over the last few days? Did he honestly believe this rude and dramatically unpunctual degenerate worthy of his individual attention. Suppressing an urge to stride down the classroom and demand an apology for the clear lack of manners, he turned instead and started to write furiously on the blackboard, all too aware of the sniggering and snatches of whispered conversation in a language with which he was still far too unfamiliar, coming from behind him. He had been humiliated in similar situations before, but this time he felt horribly let down – and mainly by himself. “Professionalism, Dougal” he muttered to himself, “Professionalism.”
“Thank you class. And if I could please have the remainder of the essays by next Thursday, that would be excellent,” Dougal said, dismissing the class a little over an hour later. The fact that the majority of the students had already bolted upon hearing the sound of the tones signalling the end of the second period was lost on the young teacher. He was more intent on intercepting the now faster moving Shu Tanaka as he also made a beeline for the door. “Shu, if I could just have a moment, please?” he managed to direct at the back of the retreating youth. Shu knew he was caught, and equally that there was no escape. He had been through the same scenario many times before, and knew the procedure. Turning slowly, head down, he hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans and addressed his teacher, “Hai, sensei” he muttered. Dougal spoke softly, “Listen Shu, I know it’s pretty hard to make it to all your classes on time and all that, but, you know, a simple ‘sorry’ wouldn’t go amiss, from time to time now would it?” Shu looked up and delivered his most baleful and well-practiced apologetic look. “Sorry, sensei,” he managed in the special, whining, remorseful tone he reserved for his foreign teachers. Dougal responded, “Well, alright then, we’ll say no more about it this time.” Then just as Shu was about to execute a high-speed exit, “However, I would like to have a little word about your composition, if you could spare a minute or two. “Shu’s heart sank. Any chance of making an early run to the school cafeteria for an early lunch spot were well and truly out the window. The ensuing conversation was relatively brief.
Dougal: Well, how’s school life these days, Shu?
Shu: Very busy, so busy, Dougal sensei.
Dougal: Yes, I can remember my own college days, so much study and so little time (slight chuckle).
Shu: Yes, sensei, I work very, so hard.
Dougal: Good, good for you
Shu. Well, actually, as I said, I wanted
to talk to you about the paper you submitted two weeks ago, MONKEY WANT BANANA.
Shu: Oh! hai, yes, sensei.
Dougal: OK, well, yes, errm, well perhaps you might like to have another try at it. Not that it’s terribly bad or anything like that, but only it’s a little, how can I say, on the short side, if you see what I mean.
Shu: Sensei?
Dougal: Mmm, well the thing is Shu, four words is really only about the length of a title, isn’t it? I was hoping for, well, considerably more actually. I mean I understand what you were trying to express, that the monkey really wanted that banana, but perhaps that wasn’t all the monkey wanted to say. Perhaps the monkey wanted to say more, Shu?
Shu: You want monkey say more, sensei?
Dougal: Yes Shu, I think the monkey, if it could communicate, has more to say to you, and I think you can write down all that it has to offer. What do you think?
Shu: Yes, I think about monkey more again. Write about more monkey, sensei.
Dougal: That’s the spirit, Shu. Rewrite the piece and hand it in to me next Thursday, I shall look forward to reading it.
Shu: Hai, sensei. Thank you,
thank you very much, bye-bye.
Dougal: Thank you, Shu. Goodbye!
Dougal returned to his office in great spirits. He had finally made a breakthrough. Shu Tanaka had seemed to understand the
essence of what he was trying to convey and had accepted his advice without
question. He had apologized for his
earlier rudeness, hadn’t he? He was
prepared to try harder, wasn’t he? Of
course, he was, and he, Dougal McLeish, would not turn his back on him
now. Yes, now he thought about it, a lot
of the fellow’s behaviour could clearly be misinterpreted. The pathetic walk and looks could just as easily
be signs of a terrible life-long shyness.
The refusal to make eye contact with his teachers and other students,
signs of loneliness, of one unable to reach out to others easily. To Dougal McLeish, Shu Tanaka was a
loner. That was as evident as the
suffering of the good Lord Jesus himself.
But he could help him, and help him he most certainly would. Shu Tanaka would be assisted in reaching his
full potential, because that was what he, Dougal McLeish, had been brought to
Japan to do.
Professor Koizumi was right after
all. The reason why Dougal had seen so
little of him was obviously because the professor had wanted him to seek out
these challenges by himself. He was
beside himself now. He switched on his
computer and began to compose the first of his twice daily e-mails home to the
family. Today’s would be very special,
though. Today’s would tell them that he
had finally found a purpose to his life, that he now knew he was destined to
help others fulfill their dreams and potential.
He would ask them to include Shu Tanaka in their evening prayers.
Shu Tanaka went out that evening with a few of his cronies to a favorite
student hang out near the campus. He
recounted the incident with Dougal McLeish over more than a few beers and it
got some serious belly laughs, mostly due to Shu’s outrageous impression of the
young teacher. Most of those present
took classes with McLeish sensei, and while they agreed he wasn’t such a bad
guy or a hardass, he was, in general, pretty weird. Over the next week Shu divided his time
fairly equally between visits to pubs, mates’ houses and his long-suffering
girlfriend. One thing he didn’t do, or
even actually think about, was rewriting the paper for Dougal. At about ten-thirty on the following Thursday
morning, fifteen minutes before he was due to walk into the writing class, Shu
was sitting, sipping coffee, in a student only area of his faculty
building. He was nursing a stinking
hangover and couldn’t really decide on why he had made the decision to come to
school at all. It was only then that a
feeling of alarm slowly crept up on him.
Diving into his tatty, clear plastic folder he extracted the paper that
McLeish sensei had returned to him the week before. A little more creased, twice folded over, but
otherwise untouched. Shu put down his coffee,
picked out a pen with a bit of colour and began to write.
Dougal was a little disappointed to see Shu make yet another late entry
to the class, but very happy to see him none the less. He hadn’t seen his student around the campus
during the previous week, and had felt a little disconcerted at his feelings of
concern for the young man. Hey, he
wasn’t his father or anything, after all.
Still, he was here now, and … wasn’t that a smile and a nod from the
young fella! Well, well, well!
Shu crept into the room, hoping McLeish sensei would be facing the board
and not see yet another of his famous late entrances. He tossed a casual smirk at Emi Kimura who
blushed a little and smiled back. He’d
been out with Emi in the first year, and she’d been a rare old laugh, for a
while at least. Looking forward he saw
that his teacher was staring straight at him.
Dammit! He did the only thing he
could do-he gave the guy a nod and a smile.
What do you know, he smiled straight back. This one practically handed
you the chain to jerk so often it just wasn’t sport, he thought. Adopting his cool, but casual walk, Shu
proceeded to his usual seat, pulled out his fashion mag and got down to some
serious reading.
At the end of the ninety minutes Dougal could hardly contain
himself. While he was answering the same
questions he had answered during the lesson itself to one of the more
persistently dense students, he could see Shu Tanaka hovering on the periphery,
obviously nervous and anxiously glancing between the paper he was holding in
his hand and the door. Dougal could tell
he was finding it difficult to summon up the courage to come forward and hand
in the paper. He was probably so insecure
in his own ability that he had spent most of the past week going over what he
wanted to say this very morning. He
finished off answering the last of the questions and raising his chin beckoned
Shu Tanaka forward.
Shu was desperate to get out of that bloody classroom. He was hopping from foot to foot, looking at
his watch, looking at the door. That
idiot Junichi was asking his stupid questions again. Come on you stupid ….…. aarrg!! He had to get going if he was to have any
chance of getting one of the lunch specials, and he was bloody starving. Plus, when he handed in this paper he didn’t
really want to have another heart to heart with Mr. Wacko. Oh great!
He’s finished.
Shu rushed forward clutching the paper. He thrust it forward, forcing Dougal to take
it from him. Then after a split second
of indecisiveness when he was actually considering initiating a conversation
with the man, he shrugged his shoulders, turned on his heels and was off out
the door. The young Scot was taken
aback. He looked at the familiar piece
of paper in his hand, then slowly started to unfold it. Once opened out and presented in its full
glory, he took a sharp, involuntary intake of breath. Then raising his eyes slowly to the ceiling,
pressing the now wrinkled paper to his chest, softly and under his breath
murmured, “Yes Shu, I think you may be right – I really think you may very well
be right”. Spreading the paper out again
on his desktop he read aloud the new, and to his mind, much improved legend
“MONKEY WANT BANANA AND FRIEND!!”
When is Ryōan-ji not Ryōan-ji? At what point does representation become abstraction, or does one thing morph into something totally different? John Cage loved stones, and collected them from all over the world. He also loved Ryōan-ji from the moment he saw it during his first trip to Japan in 1962. In 1983 Cage began producing a series of drawings entitled, Where R = Ryoanji, based on the sketched outlines of 15 small stones from his collection. Chance operations using the I Ching determined each choice of stone and its position on the paper, the type of pencil used, the number of times each stone was outlined, and the total number of outlines drawn. This is a lesson in the limits of representation, for the only aspects of the garden that remain in the drawings are the two invariables: the proportions of the paper (which roughly approximate those of the garden) and the count of 15 stones that were used for the tracing (though the final result always contains a greater number of stone outlines than the 15 stones of the garden). It is as if the drawings represented the most basic schematic groundplan of the karesansui garden of Ryōan-ji, in potentially infinite abstract variations. The reduction of the garden to its schematic representation in Cage’s drawings radically reduces the figurative sense of the garden (the stones set on raked sand representing mountains arising from the waves of the ocean), and indeed it is only by reference to the title that we know these forms somehow represent the garden, or even stones. With Where R = Ryoanji, we are at the limits of metaphor and representation, due to the transformation of medium and the reduction of form. It would seem that Cage identified with the creators of Ryōan-ji rather than its spectators, valuing creative gesture over spectatorship, process over product, image over icon, presentation over representation.
John Cage, Ryoanji (1983 ff)
Cage subsequently produced, beginning in 1983, a series of musical compositions simply entitled Ryoanji. The graphic score is separated into two parts to be played simultaneously: percussion (invariable through all versions) and instrumental (different scores for various solo instruments, voice, and small ensemble). The different instrumental versions were composed by using the outlines of the same 15 stones utilized for the templates of Where R = Ryoanji. We might surmise that Cage produced these templates rather than redrawing the stones for each new musical composition so as to eliminate the variations that would result from the vagueries of draftsmanship, thus standardizing the series. In each case, the outline of the stone is split horizontally, and only half or less is used.
These templates are randomly placed upon facing pages, with the pitches at the beginning and end of each line randomly determined, and the total pitch range of the piece fixed by the specfic register of the instrument in question. The result is a series of either microtonal steps or glissandi (a continuously rising or falling tone) sounding either independantly or concatenated to form simple melodies. (In the case of overlapping lines in solo scores, one of the glissandi is pre-recorded.) Since the same limited number of curves are reused, the form is vaguely that of a fugue.
Ryōan-ji (composite photo with stones outlined; graphics Tom Rasky)
Perhaps the most interesting question concerning this score is why Cage didn’t simply take a schematic drawing of Ryōan-ji, with the stones represented either in overhead outline or frontal silhouette, using their actual forms and relative positions in the garden to indicate pitch, duration and counterpoint. Such an instrumentalization of the garden would have certainly accorded with Cage’s duchampianism, with the garden serving as a readymade musical score. The shapes that would be generated by the actual stones of the garden – whether drawn from above or frontally – reveal diverse curves, steps, and even flat lines, which would variously translate into glissandi, with whole tone, half-tone, or microtonal steps, and occasional nearly constant pitches. One might argue that while the visual impact of this hypothetical score might be more engrossing than that of Cage’s actual score, its musical manifestation would be less compelling, even somewhat inchoate. However, within a system of chance operations and aesthetic indifference such as Cage’s, this critique would be moot.
I have long wondered why Cage did not do this. I, however, find this possibility intriguing, and thus propose in homage a sketch of my miniature Opus No. 1 (Ryōan-ji for John Cage), scored for any glissando producing instrument (including voice), to be played without vibrato, lanto, mezzo-piano, with pitch to be determined by any preferred random method, according to the range of the instrument.
Allen S. Weiss, Opus No. 1 (2012; graphics Tom Rasky)
“Encounters With Kyoto”Book launch – report by Iris Reinbacher
On Saturday, June 22nd, WiK held the official launch party for the 3rd Writers in Kyoto Anthology, called Encounters With Kyoto. About half of WiK’s members came all the way to Umekoji Park’s Midori Building, where Jann Williams had set up a room full of food, drinks, and books, of course.
After everybody got a cup of sake, the first half of the launch party began with John Dougill’s reminiscences of starting the Writers in Kyoto group in 2015. He also presented all three Anthologies, from the first one that was collated copied pages to the current one which is available on amazon (click here).
Chief editor, Jann Williams
We continued with readings of contributors, headed by Jann Williams, chief editor of the current Anthology. Readings by Ken Rodgers, Mayumi Kawaharada and Marianne Kimura followed. Afterwards, there was a break for our members to mingle and enjoy more sake, international snacks and conversations ranging from the serious to the light-hearted.
The second half of the party began with a speech in honor of Juliet Winters Carpenter, who, after 44 years in Japan, will move back to the US in the near future. As a parting gift, John Dougill presented her with a copy of the third Anthology, signed by all members who were present. Then there was an introduction by Mark Richardson of his latest book “The Wings of Atalanta, followed by a reading about a dramatic moment in US race relations.
Mark Richardson reading from his new book, The Wings of Atalanta
There were more
readings from our book, this time by Fernando, Iris, Mike and Karen, and in the
end, Juliet talked about how she came to Japan in the first place, why Kyoto is
really the best city in the world, and what her latest endeavours were.
After some more sake, sweets and general mingling, the official book launch party was closed. However, in true Japanese style, some members made their way to a private “nijikai” (second party).
If you could not join the party, you can experience the works of our members collected in our third Anthology called “Encounters With Kyoto”, which is available in print on amazon in Japan, the US and the UK (ebook may be coming soon).
Juliet Winters Carpenter, delighted with her signed copy
Mike Freiling introducing his poems
Karen Lee Tawarayama explaining what motivated her to write about ropes made from women’s hair exhibited at Higashi Honganji
Silhouetted against the noonday sky, the president of
Tokai Pearls Ltd. stood at his suite window and surveyed the harbor. His gaze
ranged from the shipyards and submarine docks of Kawasaki Heavy Industries to
the Mosaic shopping mall and its slow-turning Ferris wheel, then to the Port
Tower where tour boats came and went from the ferry terminal, and finally to
the Rokko mountains which lifted the suburbs in a great pale wave above the
sea.
‘Do you know why they call this Pearl
City?’ he asked.
The three dark suits at the back of the
room said nothing. Their collective gaze instead fell to the middle-aged woman
in a blue pants suit who sat on the leather sofa chair in front of them. She
was generously built, wore her hair in a jet black bob, and rested her manicured
hands on a chestnut brown handbag in her lap.
‘Because pearls are a Kobe girl’s best
friend?’ she ventured.
The President boomed. His laughter rolled
about the room like distant thunder. ‘Good, good! I like it,’ he said, then to
the back of the room, ‘Danno, make a note of that. We could use it in
advertising.’
A slim young man with a fashionable
hairstyle gave a curt ‘Hai!’, drew a pen from his breast pocket and scribbled
into a notepad.
The president seated himself behind a desk
of polished walnut; a pink conch shell paperweight to one side, a speed-dial
phone to the other. He was a short man, heavy-set, with a cherubic face and a
smooth, tanned pate which caught the sunlight at such an angle it made him look
almost angelic.
‘I’ll tell you why it’s called Pearl City,
Ms Suzuki,’ he said. ‘Because more pearls pass through this town than anywhere
else in the world, and more pearls pass through this company than any other in
this town. Our reputation, like our pearls, is unblemished.’ He leaned forward.
‘That is why we have asked you here today.’
Suzuki glanced about the room. She noted
the reproductions of old photos showing pearl luggers, turn-of-the-century
fishing villages, and half-naked female divers—the famed ‘sea women’ of
Mie prefecture. She noted the brass diving bell helmet set on the teakwood
sideboard, the mounted staghorn of red coral, and the framed photo of the
Empress of Japan around whose neck gleamed three strands of fine Akoya pearls.
Her gaze returned to the president.
‘Someone is stealing from me and I want to
know who,’ he said, then nodded towards the young man behind her. ‘Danno, here,
is my assistant…’
‘Thank you for coming, Ms Suzuki,’ Danno
said, stepping lightly across the room to his boss’s side. ‘You come highly
recommended.’
‘Oh?’ she said.
‘You did some work for my wife’s sister a
few months ago…a Ms Deguchi?’
‘She said you’re a fast worker. “Very
intuitive” were the words she used.’
‘I had some help…’
‘Nevertheless,’ the president interrupted,
‘there are one hundred and twelve staff at this company, nearly all of them
female. We believe a female detective, such as yourself, stands a better
chance of finding a thief than the City police…We are offering a
three-hundred-thousand yen fee, paid upfront, with another three-hundred
thousand paid to you for proof of the thief’s identity.’ He nodded at Danno,
who reached into his breast pocket, produced a white envelope and passed it to
her.
She felt the tight wad of crisp banknotes
inside and drew a breath, more than a month’s salary in her hands. She looked
up and her gaze was arrested by the image of a solo freediver on the wall
behind the president. She was full-breasted and strong-armed, wearing only a
loin cloth and a line tethered to her waist as she descended the depths on
shafts of sunlight. Suzuki had heard that the ‘sea women’ of Mie could stay
down longer than men—their extra body fat kept them from
freezing. She wondered how much a woman like that had gotten
paid for her time and efforts.
‘Ms Suzuki?’ said Danno. ‘May we have your
answer, please?’
Her gaze returned to the two men and she
breathed out slowly.
**********************
This is the beginning of a longer short story entitled ‘Pearl City’, which can be read on Kindle, Kobo, Smashwords, Apple Books, etc. “for the price of a coffee”. – Simon Rowe www.mightytales.net
For more by Simon, see his poem about kayaking friends here, or his piece about a trucker called Uramoto here, his excerpt from the novella ‘Sword Dancer’ here, or his account of marketing his own book here.
Impromptu Anti-Plastic Environmental Activist in Shugakuin – Marianne Kimura
When we moved to our neighborhood almost five years ago, there was a rather large green field on a road near our house. Of course, in the current political climate promoting economic growth, three years ago the field became houses and even one apartment building.
Only one strip
of land along the narrow river, about 15 meters wide by 100 meters long, was
left as grass for a few years. However, last week it was covered up with a long
and thick black plastic mat so that grass would not grow anymore.
I was shocked
by this. Up until now, the grass had been cut regularly but had never been
completely covered up. Having read that the population of insects in the world
has dropped by 75% over the past 40 years, and populations of wild birds have
experienced major declines as well, I could not imagine how people could just
throw away land like this and not share it with wildlife.
It was my
Japanese language lesson the next day, so I took a photograph of this strip of
land covered by plastic and showed it to my teacher, who said “sore ha chotto.
Cosmos nado no hou ga ii”, which means, roughly translated, “no, that is not
very good. How about letting some cosmos and wildflowers grow there?”
I also remembered
that a much smaller and much narrower strip of land, perhaps 1/30 of the size
of the one near my house, had been covered up with a similar plastic sheet on
territory owned by the Kunaicho, the imperial land preserve about two
kilometers from our house, a couple of years ago. I had noticed that plastic
sheet when it was newly installed back then while walking the dog and I had
been extremely dismayed.
Now, after
seeing the new and much larger plastic sheet near my home, I decided to
investigate the older one more closely so I walked over there and brought my
camera to document its condition.
Of course, it
had been degraded by the sun and weather and was now torn in various spots,
which was good since small plants were able to grow back. However, these torn
places also revealed fibrous edges which are shedding plastic fibers into the
environment. I should note that a big river, Otowagawa, is about 10 meters away
from this plastic sheet, so the pieces of microplastic must be going straight
into the water.
Reaching
through the chain-link fence of the Kunaicho, I touched the plastic sheet: it
felt and looked like a sort of thick and heavy plastic foam.
We already
know from various scientific studies that we are drinking and breathing
microplastics in significant quantities every day, and this is not a situation
that should be tolerated.
I plan to
write a letter to Kyoto City and express my opinion that these plastic sheets
are horrible for the environment, for the water and for the increasingly beset
insects and wildlife. Cutting the grass is fine, but covering it over,
especially with something that puts microplastics into the water, should not be
allowed.
It’s not easy
for me to write a technical letter like this in Japanese, so my husband is
helping me. It’s kind of funny because it’s our 27th wedding
anniversary in a few days and I told him it can be his present to me.
I have no idea
if my letter will have any impact. However, I simply have to try. One never
knows when must become an impromptu environmental activist, but that moment has
arrived for me.
****************************
For more by Marianne, see how she landed a contract for her second novel here. For her double life as a Shakespearean scholar and fiction writer, see here.
I can’t remember where the initial idea came from, but I do know that it was three years old. I thought it would be interesting to walk the Kamogawa in Kyoto. By that I mean literally walk the river, straight down the middle of its bed. During the drier days of August, the water looks to be only about shin deep, and would be a refreshing distraction from the heat. And as a companion, it could only be Chris Irwin, who with his hair wild and beard tidy, bears a passing resemblance to Eric Idle’s Jesus. He seemed the perfect co-conspirator in foolish ideas.
I wanted to walk on an incredibly hot day, when the rain hadn’t fallen for a week or more. The more sensible of Kyoto’s foreign expats tend to avoid the heat of August by going abroad, and Chris and I were no exception, which narrowed our window of opportunity to just a week or two each year. Dates would be chosen, and without fail, it would rain heavily the night before. But both of us were in town for much of this summer, one whose weather was taking on the disaster-like proportions of another Irwin, Irwin Allen. And the day finally came.
Japan was currently suffering under a murderous heat wave, and on the day we chose, Kyoto set the national high of 39.8℃. In the spirit of pilgrimage, the section of river between the Kamigamo and Shimogamo shrines seemed a good choice, and the bike ride up to the northern part of the city encased the body in a sweat that would be a delight to rinse off.
We bowed to the deities, under the watchful guise of a shrine worker who I assume carries a protractor to aid the pagan foreign tourist in showing the proper degree of respect. The next angling was down the adjacent riverbank and onto the stony banks beneath the bridge leading to the shrine. Those initial few steps quickly brought with them a welcome respite from the heat.
For a while the river was shallow, well below knee-height. One facet I hadn’t thought too much about was the concrete waterfalls that help control the flow. They are placed at intervals of about two or three hundred meters, and though only a meter or so in height, you could never be sure of the depth at the far side. For the first couple, we found breaks in the stone work from the recent floods, where the water poured through like a waterslide. But we grew more confident as we went, looking down for a moment or so for a rock to step down onto, and then a second step that was a leap of faith into churning white water.
We had companions along the way: blue herons, white egrets, and black cormorants. Mandarin ducks floated at the edge of the waterfalls, eyeing an ease of entry in a way similar to what we’d been doing. A suppon turtle showed itself against the muddy bottom, moving quickly away when it felt the falling over of our shadows. Turtles move pretty quickly in the water, and it when it turned toward us again, we made certain to stay clear of the suppon’s sharp teeth. One thing we didn’t see were the nutria that once hunted the banks down near Demachiyanagi. An invasion species sure, but it was always interesting to see their furry shapes dart from the reeds to the water and back. Sadly the city of Kyoto seems to have deported them once and for all.
It was a joyful walk, Chris and I catching up after a long separation, our tales of recent events broken now and again by film quotes, fragments of song lyrics, or simply comments of overall silliness. We tried to bring some of the locals into the fun, as many on the banks looked incredulously at our undertaking. We waved to absolutely everyone. One old fellow trailed us with his expensive camera, snapping more furiously than the suppon earlier.
As we went along, the water took on a varying degree of depth. While it looked a uniform level from the bicycle path on the river bank, it varied quite dramatically. The fast moving water betrayed the shallows, but the narrow channels were of surprising depth. In a couple of spots we were up to our chests, forcing us to raise our bags and mobile phones over our heads. It was here that Chris broke into his Kate Hepburn imitation: “Is that a leech, Mr. Allnut?”
I imagine that the week of raging waters earlier in July had scoured the riverbed clean of debris and dangerous objects. It was much more stone laden than expected, and every so often I’d lurch to one side as an unseen rock would turn underfoot. I’d opted at the last minute for an old pair of Vibram Five Fingers for this particular mission, and by the time we were at Kuramaguchi Bridge both soles had peeled back like bananas. They separated completely not long afterward, so I stuck them into my pockets and continued along.
Beyond the concrete fish ladders above Demachiyanagi, the water took on a somewhat foul smell, and bits of debris appeared: a tire upon a broken axle; a long section of bamboo fence. I was moving slowly now, every step agony, like the most painful reflexology session in the world. Finally, hand in hand, Chris and I stepped up the actually confluence of the Kamogawa and Takasegawa, as around us college-age students splashed and frolicked and giggled. Only the gods now awaited, as my gait once again returned to its usual stride, and the soft, groomed sand of Shimogamo’s forested approach led us to our final ablutions of thanks.
WiK member Ken Rodgers (Managing Editor of Kyoto Journal ) writes…
With the 75th anniversary of D-Day currently in the news, I was reminded of WiK’s Battle of the Somme reading a few years back, where I shared excerpts from my maternal grandfather’s grim war diaries describing trench warfare. Another book that has great personal significance for me was written by my father, completed just a couple of months before he passed on in 1988, about his time as an RAAF Lancaster bomber pilot in England towards the end of WWII. Title: There’s No Future In It.
My father flew 32 mostly night bombing operations (a ‘tour’ of ops), from East Kirkby in Lincolnshire. By age 23 this former farming lad was a Flight Commander. After finishing his tour (facing many other perilous situations in addition to those excerpted here), he became a test pilot – another dangerous occupation. From his book it’s clear just how truly fortunate he was to survive, and by extension, how I myself, my two sisters – and our sons and daughters too – might so easily never have existed…
{RAAF – Royal Australian Air Force]
**************
Excerpts from There’s No Future In It by Wade Rodgers, D.F.C., ex-R.A.A.F.
Dawn
on June 6 1944 saw the long-awaited Invasion of Europe in the Caen area of
Brittany.
In the early hours a thousand bombers
flew carefully in a wide arc around the cross-channel invasion fleet and knocked out all
ten coastal defence heavy gun batteries ahead of them, so relieving the incoming
boats of a lot of resistance. Of course we were almost certain that This was It
and had confirmation when we flew back empty and, still in the dark, had a look
at the H2S cathode plan indicator showing the immense spread of shipping on its
way south. It was an historic day and we felt we were doing our bit in the
monumental task of getting the troops ashore. But we hadn’t finished yet. Late that
evening we were back again to bomb rail and road intersections in the Caen area ahead
of the invasion, to prevent the arrival of German heavy armoured vehicles and
tanks. Our attack was made under cloud from about 2500 feet for accuracy, too low for photos.
Three nights later we went to Etampes,
just south of Paris. I can’t remember the target and the photo wasn’t clear. On 24 June we
did our eighteenth trip, to Pommereval. This was another railway target in France to
prevent the movement of troops and equipment forward from Reserve positions
towards the invasion coast. Numerous smallish numbers of aircraft were detailed from our
Group and others to cover the network of vital rail and road links over the next month or so.
On the night of 27 June, we went at high level to a major
“Doodlebug” or V1 storage and discharge site at Marquise Mimoyecques. We got a
good target photo but heard later that the
main dump had a concrete roof of such strength that our one thousand pounders would
have had no effect.
Since they first appeared
on June 12, the VI flying bombs had proved to be pretty destructive over southern
England. They had, I think, solid fuel which was converted and blasted out the
back. Thus the monster was “jet-propelled” for the metered amount of
fuel, whereupon
propulsion stopped and vanes tilted it down, to explode on point of impact. The
thing weighed
about a ton and flew from sites on the close French coast, aimed and timed to
reach London as a primary target. Speed was in the order of 450 m.p.h. and only
fast fighters could keep up, so special techniques were evolved. By these,
either they were shot down or, in some instances, a fighter pushed a wing tip up under
a bug’s wing and upset its gyroscopes, sending the thing into the ground, preferably in open
country.
4 July. 20th op. to St Leu
d’Esserent. This was a railway complex (with a branch leading off to V2 storage in
mushroom caves at Criel, which we visited later.) Aiming point photo yet again. Our photos prove we bombed targets.
On 13 July we had a long
trip down the South East of France at a low 5,650 feet, to knock out a great intersection of
railway lines at Culmont Chalindrey. On the way down we watched a raid on another target
off to port. First flares then markers and then red and green target indicators in a cluster.
Right on schedule the main force let go with the lot for fifteen minutes. Real
copybook stuff. Ours went off as well and we got the now almost inevitable
photo of the centre of the yards.
Two nights later we repeated the performance at Nevers, which I think was in the same area. Another second dickey rode with us and we gave him the usual gen, showed him the pretty lights on the ground and took him through the ugly ones at our own level. P/O Sargeant was impressed. I think that on this night we passed through a long gloomy patch of Nimbostratus cloud, both coming and going. Next to Cu-Nimbs and their thunderheads, this is the worst cloud, being amorphous and dark, with no visible horizon even in daylight. In this lot there was the usual freezing rain and icing, but worst of all was the St. Elmo’s fire which flickered from the edges to the centre of the cockpit canopy and windscreen and also the turrets, blinding us and probably all the other crews in the aircraft stream.
Yes, the weather was often
as troublesome as the opposition and the two together made for bad relations! And yes,
again, there were far too many collisions than was healthy. Always, aircraft
were turning short or overshooting or just drifting through the stream and we
were always
on the alert for them. At a distance at night there seemed, at first, very
little difference between friend or foe. A lot of gunners, trigger-happy and lonely in
their turrets hour after hour, shot first and asked questions only if there was anything still in
sight.
Here I might mention
weaving and banking searches. On the first trip, with Rogers, I was appalled to see him use the
auto-pilot for long stretches, even over Germany. Some Squadrons encouraged its use but I
always swore I never would, and in fact never did, engage the thing, even on the final long
trek to Konigsberg of 10 hours 40 minutes. You see, there were always those two seconds to
disengage it and I wanted those two seconds to start evasive action when necessary. Also its use
discouraged banking searches which put the aircraft almost on her wingtips so that the
gunners and others could look deep down below us, always the dangerous black spot, not normally visible to them.
After the war we were astounded
to learn that some bright gun enthusiast of a Luftwaffe mechanic had hatched up a
rig for mounting two upward firing cannons, 20mm or larger, in the roof of a JU88
twin-engined night fighter and, ultimately, in the more efficient Messer-schmitt210. With their own
radar, and being vectored into a stream of our bombers, they could latch onto one and come up
behind and below. They then moved right in under the bomber’s belly and lined up the
cannon on the starboard main fuel tank between inner engine and fuselage. One rapid burst
and they dropped smartly away to avoid the inevitable fire and explosion or wing burning
off. One ace pilot has been credited with some 160 kills in this way and on one night downed six
Lancs in 30 minutes. Two PFF [Pathfinder] types were flying along side by side
in formation when an Me210 came up and knocked down one of them. The other
didn’t seem
to notice he was alone and followed his mate to eternity two minutes later. One
crew member survived and told the
tale.
I was always wary of this
blank spot underneath, even though I didn’t know of this enemy invention, which they called Schrage Muzik —
Jazz Music.
“Weaving” was officially frowned
upon, in fact, forbidden. There was increased danger of collisions in the Stream,
obviously, and it was not conducive to orderly navigation. Jimmy and I talked
this over and experimented with gentle weaving over a given distance, noting
the slightly
longer travel time from A to B. I did a weave that evened out over a distance,
being neither
regular nor pronounced. The result was a variation of directional flying, by
which radar predictors
for flak batteries might be foxed. Also, as we saw later, fighters would come
up, have a
look from well back and, deciding that this bloke was awake, slide off in
search of an easier
victim. We’ve actually seen this happen and a stream of tracer putting paid to
an adjacent Lanc.
18 July. D-Dog to Caen with
13,000 lb. at 12,000 feet. This was a famous raid in which a thousand Lancs and
Halifaxes dropped the load at daylight on the German troops preventing the Allied breakout from
the beach-head. It was a most intensive raid and we got no photos through the pall of dust and smoke that arose.
After our bombing run, we
came around to starboard and spent some time having a grandstand view of the landing
operations, the “Mulberry” harbour and the mass of shipping pouring in materials to the shore.
The next day we did a
second daylight raid, to Criel Thiverny at 14,300 feet, too low for a daylight, we all agreed.
This was the mushroom cave complex in which were stored the V2 rocket bombs, fiendish
things which were launched almost vertically and reached a speed of some 3000
m.p.h. on the downward path. I had had experience of these in London one early
morning, after travelling up from Plymouth. I’d gone into the station, bought a
cup of tea and was
just about to sip it when there was a resounding bang somewhere nearby,
followed by the whistle
of this V2, which had travelled faster than sound. I didn’t stop to enquire but
took the next train North out of
London.
On this fine afternoon in
July, we arrived over Criel Thiverny and everything was laid out below. Somehow Fred was not
happy with our run-up, even though we were in the Stream, and I was horrified
to hear him say, “Dummy run, go around again.” Instead of grabbing
the emergency
bomb release and letting them go, I did just that, went round again.
There, completely on our own, we made another run-up on the tunnel entrance. The 88mm guns had gone silent and all was peaceful as we dropped the load. Seconds later, and I wonder now why the gunners waited so long till the bombs had gone, a box barrage of 88mm shells burst all around us. From the upper turret, Frank shouted, “We’re hit!” over the intercom. No thought of the camera run, now half over, was in anyone’s mind. I slammed the wheel and rudder hard over and went into a screaming dive to starboard. Even in the heat of the moment it was instinctive to go starboard, as I’d drilled myself for such an occasion — the Germans thought all British pilots turned port, as in a circuit of an English airfield. The next box barrage, which took twelve seconds from the ground at this height, arrived just where we would have been, but we were now screeching back around to the west and all taps were open in our hurry to get out of that place.
The Stream of Lancs were mere specks in the distance and we had no hope of catching them. The fighter escort covering the operation at 30,000 feet would be on their way back as well and we were on our Pat Malone. There was little conversation till we reached the coast in record time. By luck we went over no more flak batteries and not one fighter appeared — a flight of Messerschmitts could have made mincemeat of us. I still have the last camera photo — oblique to the left
There was one flak hole through the fuselage wall and the chunk of hot metal was imbedded in the ammunition trays to Frank’s turret, below his feet. How lucky we were — I hope even Fred the Atheist said a little prayer of thanks to Someone.
These daylight ops. were
frightening things. One felt so exposed — we could see the ground and the gunners down
there could see us no doubt, if they weren’t glued to their radar predictor screens.
Certainly they would have been aware, in this case, of an aircraft doing a run over the target alone
and our height of 14,000 feet was in very easy range. They could, in fact, fire accurately at
well over 20,000 feet, tracking us with radar and with fuses set to our height. At night we felt
hidden in the dark and even the flak bursts were a quick flash and the smoke merged with the
background. In daylight the bursts left small black “mushrooms” of smoke writhing and curling
in the air; a barrage from six to eighteen guns at close range around us, as we flew in on the
bombing run, gave the impression of an inescapable barrier. With multiple
“boxes” stretching ahead there was a strong natural urge to swing
away, away anywhere
except the place where they expected us to be. But, as gaggle leaders, we
couldn’t be
seen to waver and we just had to plough on through it, with a prayer wrung from
the heart…
“… Lord
help us… we can’t help ourselves…”
On the night of 24/7, we
went to Donges, St. Nazaire, in S.W. France, to do something about U-boats, I think. Oil storages? That
wasn’t our worry.
LE-D for Dog was far ahead
of the Stream this time, far ahead of the Pathfinders, thirty minutes ahead in fact. Jim
Campnett had been detailed to get a three-drift wind and get it radioed back to Command pronto
so that it could be passed back to PFF and Main Stream for bombing. To do this we
fixed our starting point by Gee, one of the Nav aids in use in short range of transmitters in
England. Then I flew a smooth triangle of equal length and Jim found the wind drift from our old to
the new ground position. “Right, whizz this off, Tommy”.
Thank goodness we got that
done for, a matter of minutes later, searchlights stabbed out of the darkness and pinned
us against overhead cloud. Up, too, came the flak to our 8,300 foot level and there
was a twang as something hit us. At this height the searchlight cone was very broad and escape
sideways would have been long and dangerous. Suddenly I stuffed the wheel forwards and LE-D screamed earthwards.
Too sudden
for the searchlight boys, we shot into darkness and I tried to pull out of the
near vertical dive. Nothing doing. Heavy with bombs, she reached 420 m.p.h. —
that is, 60 m.p.h. above safe speed empty. Jack lent his weight to the
wheel and I used trim tabs to ease her slowly back and upstairs again. In
the nose, Fred swore he saw the ground rushing up at him and we were all shaken
by the scrape with death. (Years later, a boffin worked it out for me and estimated that we were 2,000 feet
underground on our pull-out!)
Nothing
loth, we then had to nip smartly out and swing into the Stream as they followed
a known track over Donges. I did this merging back into a bomber stream at
other times through the tour and believe me, it’s not a pleasant thing to do with
“kites” whizzing past you on the turn. However, we bombed and got our
photo. Jimmy got a Mention in Despatches for his wind, which was spot-on and made the raid a
success.
The
homeward run was not a happy one. Something was wrong with our main hydraulics and we soon
found out what it was — there was no oil pressure to the system — no brakes, no flaps, no
undercarriage, etc. We found afterwards that a chunk of flak (it’s now in the drawer of my
desk) had entered the leading edge of the starboard wing between my cockpit and the inner
engine and had torn through three of the six hydraulic lines, to become
embedded in the main wing
spar.
Landing in
no-wind conditions and without flaps and brakes, (Jack had lowered the wheels with the
emergency air system), I ran on through the boundary fence and came to rest in
a paddock
of hay stooks! The Group Captain came charging out in his car, demanding to
know the Captain’s name, but he changed his tune when Bert leaned out of his
turret and told him who it was and the circumstances. We all had a laugh
about it when we got in to de-briefing.
630 Squadron LE-D Dog ME739
The Lancaster
A total of
7,377 Lancasters were built and 3,345 were lost in action. They flew 156,318
sorties and dropped 608,613 tons of
bombs.
Vital
statistics: Wingspan 102 ft. Length 69 ft. Height 20 ft. Engines 4 x 1,460 h.p.
Rolls Royce “Merlin”. Weight empty
36,900 lbs. Fully loaded 68,000 lbs.
Cruising speed
full loaded — normally kept at 160 m.p.h. indicated airspeed for optimum performance, which seemed slow when the
enemy were shooting at us! Actually the 160 m.p.h. at 20,000 feet with allowance for atmospheric temperature and
pressure, could be 210 m.p.h. true airspeed and, with a following wind of 60
m.p.h., real speed over the ground would be 270 m.p.h.
The Bottom Line
From 1939 to 1945 Bomber Command lost 8,325 aircraft all told with
about 330 others lost on minelaying and secret operations. Of these 2,573 were lost in 1944.
55,573 aircrew, out of a total of approximately 100,000, plus 1,363 male
ground staff and 91 WAAFs died while serving with Bomber Command. Of these, 4,050 aircrew
were in the RAAF.
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