Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Painagama Beach, the closest beach to Hirara.
Monument of the Five Brave Men who reported the Russian fleet entering Japanese waters in 1905.
We won't take it now. Instead, we'll pass by and continue through the little port village of
Hisamatsu ( 久松 ) to the “Monument of the Five Brave Men” ( 久松五勇士顕彰碑 ; Hisamatsu-
go-yūshi-kenshōhi). It's next to the Hisamatsu Fishing Port, about 1 mile (2.5 kilometers)
south of Painagama Beach.
The “Five Braves” is quite a story. At the risk of great oversimplification, on the night of
February 8, 1904, Japan started the first great war of the 20th century, the Russo-Japanese
War ( 日露戦争 ; Nichi-Ro Sensō), by launching a surprise torpedo attack on the Russian
warm water port and concession at Port Arthur, located at the end of Liaodong Peninsula in
the south of Chinese Manchuria. The Battle of Port Arthur ( 旅順港海戦 ; Ryojunkō Kaisen),
as it came to be known, caused great damage to the Imperial Russian Naval Far East fleet and
the Russian psyche. When word of the attack reached Moscow, Tsar Nicholas II (1868-1918)
was stunned by the news. Being a man of great rigidity and stubbornness, it is said that he
simply could not believe that Japan would commit an act of war without a formal declaration
of war. In any case, the Tsar ordered the Baltic squadron to sail halfway around the world,
18,000 nautical miles (33,000 kilometers), from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean via the
Cape of Good Hope.
On May 25, 1905, five Japanese fishermen from Hisamatsu Village sighted the Russian
fleet steaming north past the east coast of Miyako. At that time Miyako had no telegraph
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