Classmates were among Ehime Maru victims HONOLULU – A Japanese high school whose fishing boat was sunk by a U.S. Navy submarine off Hawai’i in February is preparing to send more students for fisheries training in Hawaiian waters. Fourteen students
Classmates were among Ehime Maru victims
HONOLULU – A Japanese high school whose fishing boat was sunk by a U.S. Navy submarine off Hawai’i in February is preparing to send more students for fisheries training in Hawaiian waters.
Fourteen students and two instructors from Uwajima Fisheries High School will travel to Hawai’i by the end of summer, according to the school’s administrative director, Toshihiko Nakao.
But the loss of the school’s vessel, the Ehime Maru, means those students will train with neighboring high schools.
Nine men and teenage boys were killed and another 26 were rescued when the Ehime Maru sank after being struck by the surfacing USS Greeneville nine miles south of Diamond Head on Feb. 9.
Port calls in Hawai’i have been a part of fisheries training in Japanese high schools for several decades. The country’s nearly 50 fisheries high schools prepare teen-agers for a fishing trade that employs about 400,000 people throughout Japan.
School officials say only two of the nine students surviving the Ehime Maru tragedy have returned to classes, and none will be returning to Hawai’i for the fisheries program.
However, Motoyasu Ota of the Ehime Maru Family Support Center in Uwajima said surviving students and relatives of those killed want to come to Hawai’i in late summer, when Navy contractors are scheduled to move the Ehime Maru to shallower water in the hope of recovering the victims’ bodies.
Survivors of the victims and Japanese officials have received extensive condolences from Hawai’i government and tourism leaders. A delegation headed by Governor Ben Cayetano, and including Kaua’i County Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, recently returned from a visit to the Ehime Maru’s former homeport. Kusaka and others on Kaua’i also raised money for the families of the victims.
