Into the woods near Honolulu's Schofield Barracks one night last week crept 60-year-old Ushi Makamine. Though he had lived in Honolulu under the U.S. flag, Makamine-san was planning the gesture of a fiery Japanese patriot. He would set the central island of Oahu afire, die himself in a blaze of glory.
With a bottle of rice wine, a can of kerosene, a sharp knife, he went far into the brush. Fortifying himself with the wine, he sloshed kerosene over the tindery brush, lit it, then made an earnest effort to disembowel himself.
Badly burned,...
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