In 1912, the Titanic made its first voyage, but did not expect that 4 days after going to sea, the giant ship collided with an iceberg, causing a shipwreck that made the heartache of people of all countries.
In the spirit of humanity, the people on board unanimously decided to let the lady and the child go first. So most of the 705 rescued were women and children.
Hosno, who narrowly escaped, became the only surviving Japanese, but he was soon accused by major media outlets of being a sinner who would do anything to escape.
It was only after his death that his grandson made his diary public, eventually clearing his name.
Why didn't Hosono justify himself when he was alive? What is the truth about his escape?
From the lucky ones who escaped death to the selfish ghosts that everyone spurned
In the early morning of April 15, 1912, the Titanic was still singing and dancing everywhere, and the passengers did not realize that the danger had quietly arrived.
Suddenly, a loud bang came, and the crew discovered in horror what the voyagers feared most, and the hull hit the iceberg.
A large amount of sea water poured in, the passengers fled in panic, and although the crew was also very worried about the fate ahead, they calmly moved the passengers to the deck and waited for the conclusion of the maintenance crew.
However, the "sore surface" is too big to be remedied by the materials on board.
While looking at the specifics of the impact, the captain said in despair that the Titanic was going to sink. Then immediately organized everyone to escape.
For a time, the sound of alarms, cries for help, and waves mixed together, echoing in the silent night.
Due to the limited number of lifeboats, the sea temperature is low and rescue teams are too slow to arrive. Finally, two hours later, the luxury ship was finally swallowed by the sea, and more than 1,500 passengers were "martyred" for it. This incident has been called one of the most tragic shipwrecks in history.
The shipwreck caused a huge sensation in the early 20th century.
At that time, people mourned the shipwreck on the one hand, and on the other hand, they were glad that someone had survived. But they didn't have time to think about why it was mostly white, rich, women and children who fled.
So for the first time, no one struggled with whether Hosono's statement that he had escaped by rescue boat was true. His story was widely disseminated in the media, and articles said that he was really lucky as the only Japanese to escape the shipwreck. The family is also happy.
Hosono spent the first half of his life nameless, and he thought his life might be completely changed because of that worst night. Unexpectedly, things quickly turned around.
While he was busy answering various questions from major media about the day of the sinking, a Western writer published an article called "The Truth About the Titanic".
In this article, Hosono is also "fortunate" to be mentioned, but he is portrayed by the author as a villain who will do anything to fight for an escape opportunity. He said he was pretending to be a woman in order to get on the lifeboat first.
Two "witnesses" sitting in the same rescue boat as him were also cited to enhance the credibility of this account.
In addition, in order to contrast with him, the author also deliberately mentioned the behavior of the world's richest man in the article, praising him for generously giving up his rescue opportunities at a critical moment in his life, letting women and children go first.
As a result, Hosono became the object of reproach from people around the world. Various media that had been circling around him before also criticized him one after another. The Japanese were ashamed of him, saying that he had damaged Japan's modest national customs, and it seemed that everyone who saw him cursed him twice, hoping that he would die on the day of the shipwreck.
Under the anger of the Japanese people, what suffocated Hosono the most was his father's resentment. He said to his son more than once, I really regret giving birth to such a thing as you.
Hosno tried to make a defense, but his explanation was drowned out in the wave of crusade. The truth was not revealed until after his death.
So what does the truth look like?
He was assigned to a "class" waiting to die
In those days, the Titanic was almost an epic in the history of navigation, it was noble and luxurious. Not only does it claim to be the most rugged cruise ship in the world, it is also equipped with a wide variety of entertainment facilities. It has attracted people from all over the world to want to get on the boat and find out.
But after all, space is limited, so those who want to board must not only have the ability to pay expensive fares, but also have a certain social status. But this was not enough, and the Western countries with ferry tickets still firmly believed in white nobility at this time. So they divided passengers into different classes according to factors such as wealth, status and race.
Only those who come from the top of the pyramid have the opportunity to participate in this grand outing.
At that time, Hosono was still working in the Japanese transportation department, and because of work, he happened to come to the European continent to catch the Titanic sailing, and was fortunate enough to pass the screening for boarding qualifications, becoming a Japanese lucky to board a luxury ship.
In April, the Titanic departed from a European port. Celebrities mingle in the ballroom, dancing and having fun, while others look out at the sea from the deck. Hosono sat in the second class and sorted out the documents.
In the early morning of the 15th, most of the passengers were asleep, but were suddenly awakened by a loud noise. They poked their heads out of the house and asked what had happened. As a result, the crew told me that he may have hit a reef, so please don't panic.
Although a little worried, most passengers chose to trust the crew and turned back to the house to rest. After a few minutes, however, they felt that something was getting wrong. The floor inside the house began to tilt, and the position of the sea level outside the window changed.
Someone exclaimed, "The ship is sinking!" ”
For a time, everyone was sleepless, the corridor was crowded with people, the alarm sounded, and the night was illuminated by rescue bombs. People fled in fear, some wept, others silently prayed for the Lord's blessing. The scene was chaotic as if the end was coming.
Hosono's condition is not much better, the third class at the bottom is the most advanced water, and the second class he is in is also in a precarious situation. So I grabbed a few documents and ran to a high place with the crowd. But amid the panicked crowd and the turbulence of the sea, it was impossible to know where the documents had fallen.
So when several rescue boats arrived, people seemed to see hope and scrambled in one direction.
However, for the more than 2,300 tourists on board, the pressure of a few rescue boats is still very high. So the captain made a decision in the midst of the crisis, letting the women and children and the "distinguished guests" of the first class go first, and the tourists of the second and third classes go to the back.
This plan seems to be the most methodical, and it is also the most likely way to help more than 2,000 people escape. For a short time, the tourists were quieter. The woman holding the child was limited to sitting on the rescue boat, and it was at this critical moment that the richest man in the first class generously gave up his escape place and waited for the next rescue boat to arrive.
But the speed of the ship sinking far exceeded everyone's imagination, and the rescue boat arrived very slowly. The crowd was in turmoil again, and Hosono realized that this class-based escape arrangement had actually made the decision to wait for death for most people in the third and second classes.
Some people jumped into the sea in panic, hoping to swim to the shore. But it was still early spring, and with the lower temperature in the early morning, they soon ran out of strength and had to swim in the direction of the boat.
The belated truth
The power of human beings is too small in the face of disaster, and Hosono believes that his life has come to an end today. He closed his eyes and tried his best to accept the imminence of death.
But the more this happens, the more contagious the panic of the people around him becomes, and at this moment he constantly thinks of his wife and children, and the idea of seeing them is particularly strong, so his desire to survive is also strengthened.
So he looked at the lifeboat, constantly wishing he could sit on it.
It was as if God had heard his thoughts. He suddenly heard someone shouting, two more people, there is still a place here.
This call is like a lifesaver that makes people instinctively want to grasp it. But he was still a little hesitant, is he qualified to board the ship? If you rush up, will you seize other people's survival places?
So although he squeezed to the front, he did not immediately board the ship. At this time, he saw a man in front of him go up directly, does this mean that the women and children have been transferred, so Hosono no no longer entangled, followed by jumped on the rescue boat. Then he was lucky enough to leave the shipwreck.
In the face of accusations, Hosono felt very heavy when he thought that there were more than a thousand desperate and waiting for death behind him. It may not be wrong for the media and the public to accuse himself of being a selfish villain, but to say that he "smuggled" disguised as a woman is a complete slur.
He did not remember the people who identified him, and his mood was difficult to calm down for a long time, and he could not remember exactly what boats he was on and who was on board. So the two people who jumped out to identify him may have been mistaken.
He tried to recall the night, and eventually wrote in his diary: I was wearing a dressing gown that day, probably because the night was too dark, and I was shorter than Westerners to be considered a woman.
In addition, he wrote fondly, "I put the honor of my nation before my life, I accept death, but I look forward to hope." ”
However, this self-testimony was not released until his death, and Hosono died with deep guilt for the shipwrecked deceased.
The secret, which was supposed to be buried with him, was revealed to his grandson just before the 1997 film version of Titanic.
It turned out that after Hosono's death, the descendants of the Hosono family would be affected. It wasn't until his grandson Hosono Harutomi saw his grandfather's self-statement that he realized that there was more of a misunderstanding.
So he hoped to find the rescuers at the time to ask for verification. This diary caused a great response at the time, and some people did not want to trust their preconceived judgments, and stubbornly criticized Hosono's main text. However, not long after, the American Titanic found the rescue log at that time.
It is clearly recorded in the literature that Hosono was on rescue boat No. 10 at the time, and his two "witnesses" were on boat No. 13, and they did not meet at all, so Hosono's statement of "cunning smuggling" is actually a slander.
Although his case was unjustly settled, Hosono still bears a lifetime of infamy.
The so-called "class"
As we mentioned above, the Titanic Company divides ships and passengers into three or six nine. Although they advocate that all men are born free and equal, the "lower" do not receive fair treatment when faced with shipwreck.
Haruomi Kushino
This bad atmosphere is still hinted at in the movie version of Titanic. There is a shot in the original film that gives the rescued Chinese, but this scene is cut out shortly after.
In fact, more than one Chinese person was rescued in the Titanic shipwreck, but they, like Hosono, were unfairly accused by the West.
There were eight Chinese tourists on the Titanic, but the Chinese exclusion sentiment in the United States was very strong at that time, so these eight compatriots were assigned to the lowest third class. The scenery on deck has nothing to do with them, and the lights of the dance party are extraordinarily distant.
According to the escape system at that time, they had no way to live. So desperately, several people found an abandoned boat, laboriously pushed it into the water and began to save themselves. Fortunately, after hours at sea, they ran into a rescue team.
In the end, six of the eight Chinese survived, becoming the people with the highest survival rate in shipwrecks. This is clearly not what the United States wants to see.
So while the other rescued tourists were taken to the hospital for treatment, they were detained on rescue boats and interrogated. The wording is nothing more than how did the "pariahs" of the third class get on the rescue ship? Have you used some unspeakable means?
Ironically, the media still trumpets the "chivalry" of Westerners, who survived and are vilified as stowaways who managed to escape by hiding under the boat.
The United States eventually "generously" let them go, and several of them were missing shortly after repatriation, and only one survivor named Fang Rongshan became a businessman, and it is from him that we learn about this past.
To some extent, the experience of these people is actually very similar to modern China, because the "status" is not enough, they have become the object of abandonment and suppression.
Although many people think that "family ugliness cannot be publicized", their courage to stand up and tell this heart-wrenching story is admirable. It is precisely because of this that future generations can truly understand history and avoid the recurrence of tragedies.