Seventh Ehime As the Navy moved into what could be its final week of recovery operations, divers yesterday retrieved another victim from the accident between the Japanese fisheries training vessel Ehime Maru and the nuclear submarine USS Greeneville.
victim found as
families mourn
Memorial services were held
Ring reunites woman with victim
for the 5 identified victimsBy Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.comSo far, the bodies of seven of the nine people who died in the Feb. 9 collision nine miles south of Diamond Head have been recovered. Five have been identified.
Family members of all nine victims attended memorial services for those five last night at the Nuuanu Mortuary.
Earlier yesterday, family members arrived to view their loved ones for the first time in private rooms. In a room of the East Chapel, Akiko Nomoto, mother of 17-year-old student Katsuya, dipped a cotton ball in water and placed it on her son's lips. "I want you to drink water for the last time," Akiko said, according to an interpreter.
Family members of the deceased were dressed in dark clothing and greeted by Japanese officials upon their arrival at the mortuary yesterday afternoon.
White chrysanthemums were placed on each of the five coffins.
Incense was burned as 13 Buddhist priests conducted the memorial service at 6:40 p.m. Among those who attended were Toshio Kojima, Japan's parliamentary secretary of foreign affairs; Rear Adm. William Klem; Cmdr. Rob Fink; officials of the Ehime prefecture; and volunteers from Honolulu who assisted the victim's families.
Meanwhile, the identification of the sixth body, found Friday, is pending the results of DNA testing. The seventh body was turned over to the medical examiner's office last night. Dental records were used to identify the five bodies.
The medical examiner said all the victims drowned. The bodies are expected to be transported from the Nuuanu Mortuary this morning to an undisclosed location for cremation.
Thirty-six relatives of the three crewmen, two teachers and four teenage students from Uwajima Fisheries High School are in the islands to retrieve the remains.
Also here is Ehime prefecture Gov. Moriyuki Kato, who met with Gov. Ben Cayetano yesterday to seek his help to build a waterfront memorial here. Kato wants a memorial built close to where the 190-foot vessel sank.
Before his meeting with Kato, Cayetano said he was considering a site in Kakaako, possibly incorporating the memorial one of the Ehime Maru's two anchors and a plaque.
In August, relatives and an official of Uwajima Fisheries High School in Ehime decided that two memorials should be built -- one near the school and the other in Hawaii near the accident site.
They have asked the Navy to recover items from the sunken ship, including its nameplate, mast, anchors, columns and screws, to be used as materials to build the memorials.
Yesterday, Capt. Christopher Murray, the Navy's supervisor of diving operations, said the Navy still hopes to complete the recovery of the missing and the retrieval of personal items sometime next week.
Star-Bulletin reporters Richard Borreca and
Rosemarie Bernardo contributed to this report.
Mika Makizawa received her husband's platinum wedding band retrieved from the wreckage of the Ehime Maru Monday polished and in a case. Ring reunites woman
with Ehime Maru victimShe continues to wait and hope
for recovery of her husband's bodyBy Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.comRemoving it, she carefully inspected the ring. To her relief, their wedding date and his initials were there. "I just had to make sure," she told the Star-Bulletin yesterday through an interpreter. "I knew it (was his), but I had to confirm it."
She placed the large ring on her finger, slipping her matching band behind to keep it from slipping off. She hasn't taken them off since.
"I'm happy at least half he's found," she said. "This is almost like him. More than clothing or shoes, this is something he always wore. I'm happy I can be with him always."
Hiroshi Makizawa, a teacher, was on board the fisheries training ship when it was sunk Feb. 9 by a Navy submarine and was among the nine missing.
Mika Makizawa failed to find other items belonging to her husband among the personal effects viewed Tuesday, including a toy car he had purchased for their 4-year-old son, Yuuki.
Makizawa suspects her husband's strong sense of responsibility as a teacher may be the reason.
"He's a teacher, and two students are still missing, so maybe he doesn't want to come out until they come out," she said. "Maybe they'll come out together."Makizawa went to the recovery site with the other eight victims' families Tuesday.
"I said, 'Please come out quickly," she said.
She and the family members spoke to one another.
"'Three more,' we would say. 'Three more,'" she said, referring to the bodies yet to be recovered.
The occasion stirred memories of the first boat trip to the accident site. This time, the weather was nice, with almost no waves in the ocean, she said.
"It made me think why in this beautiful ocean, and I felt really sad," she said, gazing downward, twisting the two rings on her finger.
Makizawa had expected her husband would be found quickly.
"I never thought I would be in the position of the family members whose loved ones hadn't been recovered," she said. "But then I'm really happy for those families. I just would like to take him home soon."
Makizawa attended the memorial service last night for the five of the recovered bodies.
"Indeed, they were on the same boat," she said, her eyes red with tears. "So if I were in their shoes I would be happy if those who didn't have their family back would come."