The Hummingbird by Kiernan Stephen P

Author:Kiernan, Stephen P. [Kiernan, Stephen P.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-08-01T07:00:00+00:00

THE 22ND ANNUAL AZALEA FESTIVAL of Brookings, Oregon, was not the event the boosters had planned. In fact, some declared the 1961 festival a bust.

Yet its success mattered economically to the people in that region. The craggy Oregon coast remained undiscovered as a tourist destination. Therefore, each May the chamber of commerce hosted the Azalea Festival: a parade, complete with high school marching band and crowning of the year’s Azalea Queen, followed by a cookout at Azalea Park—where footpaths snaked among plantings and sculptures, and flowering trees numbered nearly one thousand.

In June, just weeks after the disappointing festival, three Jaycees met over beers to discuss ideas for generating greater tourist interest the following year. The Jaycees are a junior chamber of commerce, which admits no person over the age of forty. Thus few Jaycees of that era had served in World War II.

However, one of the men, Doyle Rausch, remembered a fall morning when he was a child and heard an aircraft later identified as a Japanese bomber. Over the course of the evening’s suds, he suggested to the other Jaycees—Bill McChesney and Doug Peterson—that they find the pilot and invite him to the 1962 festival.

Though McChesney and Peterson had lived in the area for years, neither knew about the bombing. The greater catastrophes of World War II, and the nation’s efforts to regain prosperity, had relegated this assault into obscurity.

Peterson embraced the idea as a potential boon to tourism; he promptly wrote to the Japanese Consulate in Portland seeking information about the pilot. In August, Vice Consul T. Nishimaki mailed a response that contained two critical pieces of information: the name Ichiro Soga and an address.

The Jaycees wrote to Soga, tendering an invitation. They also sent a missive to the U.S. State Department, inquiring whether the visit was permissible. The federal government answered favorably, adding however that the travel cost must be borne locally. Soga also replied, saying that he would be glad to visit, but his wife, son, and daughter must accompany him. Airfare would cost $3,000 in 1961 dollars.

Letters and news reports from the time offer a contradictory chronology, but the gist of all accounts was this: Over the winter, Soga and the Jaycees developed a plan for the visit. The Oregon group sent a letter to President Kennedy, asking for his endorsement. The idea of inviting this special guest to the 1962 Azalea Festival appeared in the Brookings-Harbor Pilot.

Public objection was immediate. It first saw expression in letters to the editor. Mrs. Otis Gadberry’s epistle typifies the tone: “We think the Japs should stay over there, and we here.”

Mrs. Chester Davis likewise penned, “If they want to make a celebrity of someone, a lot of boys around here have been in the war and should be far more recognized than some Jap who tried to burn Mount Emily.”

“I don’t think much of it,” wrote S. E. Albin. “The pilot could have killed us.”

Bar fights began, occurring with sufficient frequency that the local chief of police approached the Jaycees in concern.

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