The Tragedy of the Ehime Maru and the Role of Baseball in the Healing Process

The Tragedy of the Ehime Maru and the Role of Baseball in the Healing Process Frank Ardolino (bio) The tragedy of the Ehime Maru and its aftermath illustrates an important aspect of human reaction to calamities. Official apologies, culturally sensitive recovery and treatment of the dead, financial settlements, and time all played essential parts in the healing process, but what aided the final reconciliation was young boys from both countries playing baseball. The games played in Japan and Hawaii helped those affected by the tragedy to move beyond it and to forge new ties of friendship and cooperation. On February 9, 2001, at 1:43 p.m., nine miles south of Diamond Head, the famous Honolulu landmark, a terrible naval accident occurred.1 A Japanese fishing trawler, the Ehime Maru, was struck and sunk by a surfacing nuclear submarine, the USS Greeneville. The Ehime Maru was a training boat for future fishermen from the Ehime Prefectural Uwajima Fisheries High School. On board were twenty crew members, two teachers, and twelve second-year students, who were spending a semester on the ship. When the ship was struck by the Greeneville, the sub's rudder hit the hull at the stern where the engine room was located and tore a hole in the five-hundred-ton ship. The crew heard a loud thump, like banging a fifty-five-gallon drum with a baseball bat, and felt the ship shudder; power was lost almost immediately, and water poured into the ship, causing it to sink within ten minutes. Three Coast Guard boats arrived at 2:45, and within fifteen minutes they had rescued twenty-six survivors, who were sick from swallowing diesel oil and were suffering from shock. However, nine people were missing: four seventeen-year-old students, two teachers, and three crew members. Christened on September 17, 1994, the Greeneville, a 360-foot super sub, had a crew of sixteen officers and 126 sailors who served under Commander Scott Waddle, a 1981 Annapolis graduate and the son of a retired Air Force colonel. Waddle seemed destined to become an admiral, but at the age of forty-one his nineteen-year career came to a tragic end when his sub, in executing a test [End Page 80] procedure, hit and sank the Ehime Maru. The major question raised was, in the words of an irate Honolulu resident, how a super sub was "not even capable of locating a ship floating peacefully above it." Japan demanded an immediate inquiry into the causes of the accident, an apology from the United States and Waddle, and an extensive salvage operation to recover the nine bodies. Waddle was immediately relieved of duty, and the Navy ordered that a court of inquiry be established to investigate the causes of the tragedy. Waddle was found guilty of violating articles 92 and 110 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice—dereliction in performance of his duties and negligent hazarding of a vessel. However, the court did not find him criminally negligent, and he was allowed to retire at full rank and pension, further angering Japan. The navy also conducted a $60 million salvage operation, which lasted twenty-one days and recovered eight bodies. The families of the crew members received a settlement of $16.5 million, and the navy paid $11.5 million to Ehime Prefecture for the rebuilding of the Ehime Maru, memorial services, and indemnities for the surviving crew members. Despite the financial settlements and the official apologies, there was a nagging sense that something else needed to be done to provide a more humane denouement to the tragedy. It was decided to hold a four-year home-and-home baseball series between teams from the Hawaiian Babe Ruth Leagues and Ehime Prefecture, ages 11–12 and 13–15. The Ehime-Hawaii Goodwill Baseball Association of Japan made the initial offer to Seiji Naya, director of the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism, who underscored the importance of the series: "Officials in Ehime are hoping to heal emotional wounds and promote positive relations through the common bond of youth baseball. What's important in this exchange is the healing that person-to-person contact will provide...

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.