A mysterious tragedy involving sailors trained for suicide attacks by the Imperial Japanese Navy occurred on a beach in Kochi Prefecture on Aug. 16, 1945, the day after Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers, ending World War II.
More than 100 of the sailors were killed by exploding bombs in the incident on Shikoku, but queries about it remain unanswered to this day.
"I don't know why it happened," said Sayoko Maeda, 86, who was then a 16-year-old student at a girls' high school in Aki, adjacent to the area where the sailors died, which is now called Konan.