Tradition lights darkest hours[Interesting Christmas Tree Story]

Washington Times & AP ^ | 24 Dec 2007 | Eric Talmadge

[BGHater]

Warren Nobuaki Iwatake's family has seen more than its share of calamity.

His father was lost at sea off Hawaii. His family was forced to move to Japan, where he was drafted during the war. He lost a brother when the bomb fell on Hiroshima.

But through it all, one thing has remained constant: the tree.

His parents bought it in 1937, and his family has brought it out every Christmas since, even when that meant risking arrest.

"This tree was a shining light, because it was a symbol of unity in my family," Mr. Iwatake said as he and his wife put the final touches on the frail, 3-foot-tall heirloom that is, once again this year, the centerpiece of their small apartment.

Though he considers himself Buddhist, Mr. Iwatake was raised in a Christian tradition.

Mr. Iwatake remembers the day his father came home with a metal-and-plastic tree and a string of lights.

Soon after, his father died in a fishing accident.

Mr. Iwatake's mother had relatives in Japan, and took Mr. Iwatake's younger brothers there. Mr. Iwatake stayed behind to graduate from high school. In 1941, six months before Pearl Harbor, he moved to Japan.

Japan clamped down on overt Western displays. Mr. Iwatake and his brothers communicated solely in Japanese, and did their best to hide their past, but their mother refused to give up on the tree, and wanted to put it up.

"During the war years, we had to do that in secret. ... We could have been arrested," Mr. Iwatake said.

[BGHater]

SYMBOL OF UNITY': Warren Nobuaki Iwatake and his wife, Emiko, are carrying on his family's tradition of displaying this Christmas tree, which has survived seven decades.

[Moose4]

Amazing story.

The story of Warren Nobuaki Iwatake and Warren Earl Vaughn was a prominent part of James Bradley’s book “Flyboys.” Vaughn was one of eight American airmen that, at various times through 1944 and 1945, were taken prisoner on Chichi Jima and then executed by beating or beheading. Several of them had portions of their bodies eaten by the Japanese. There was a war crimes trial about it later on and several Japanese officers were executed, but the story was hushed up for sixty years. The families never knew how their sons died.

}:-)4