Blackened Canteen Ceremony

On the night of June 20, 1945, during a bombing raid over Shizuoka, Japan, two Army Air Force B-29s collided and crashed, killing 23 crewmen. As local Shizuoka businessman and farmer Fukumatsu Ito pulled fatally wounded U.S. airmen from the wreckage, he found a blackened canteen in the aircraft, distorted from heat and bearing what appeared to be the seared handprint of its late owner.

A devout Buddhist, Ito believed all life is precious and bore no ill will towards America despite the terrible loss of more than 2,000 Shizuoka citizens in the raid. He started conducting an annual ceremony honoring those who had paid the ultimate price as a result of war - both Japanese and American. The ceremony included a silent prayer and the pouring of bourbon whiskey from the blackened canteen onto the crash site as an offering to the spirits of the fallen. Later, two monuments…