Lieutenant Colonel Matsudo (
Appearance[]
Matsudo was an older man of Japanese descent. He had grayish hair and a mustache, also wearing an Imperial Japanese Navy lieutenant colonel uniform.
History[]
Das Wieder Erstehen Des Adlers[]
In 1945, Wentzel H. Ahbe of the Kriegsmarine was ordered to give several Japanese naval officers (including Matsudo in the anime) safe passage to the Japanese-held city of Batavia (now Jakarta). Matsudo socialized with Ahbe on board the U-boat U-234 and commented on the gray skies as they departed from Nazi Germany. As Matsudo joked that he did not want to get shot down in a plane due to the danger and the potential irony paired with his study of aeronautics in Nazi Germany, Ahbe confidently assured him that he would bring the Japanese officer to his destination. Although he enjoyed Ahbe's company, he felt skeptical about the SS officer Spielberger due to his icy presence.
On the way, Matsudo also socialized with the rest of the U-boat's crew during their journey, even to the point of teaching them shogi, a Japanese board game similar to chess. On March 25, 1945 when U-234 was sunk by U.S. Navy depth charges and all hope for survival was lost, he committed seppuku (ritual suicide) by stabbing himself in the abdomen with his katana to follow the code of Bushido.[1]
Trivia[]
- Matsudo was based on the Imperial Japanese Navy lieutenant commander Shōji Genzo, who was posted to Germany to study aeronautics as well, and tried to return to Japan as a passenger of U-234. However, when Germany surrendered in the midst of the voyage, the captain of U-234 decided to surrender to the U.S. Navy. Consequently, Shōji committed seppuku—suicide—to avoid capture. This event was turned into the movie Das Letzte U-Boot in Germany in 1990.
References[]
- ↑ Episode 04: Die Rückkehr des Adlers