Recovery of teen's body was a surprise
| • | Online special: Collision at Sea: Ehime Maru and Greeneville |
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Navy officials had told Ryosuke and Masumi Terata not to expect their 17-year-old son's body to be found in the wreckage of the Ehime Maru.
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Yusuke Terata was aboard the Japanese fisheries training vessel when it was rammed by the USS Greeneville in February, but witness accounts led the Navy to believe the student was swept overboard after impact.
The body of Yusuke Terata was recovered on Friday.
With eight of nine bodies recovered by divers and seven of eight bodies identified, the Teratas expected to return home to Japan without having recovered their son.
They were wrong.
The body recovered by divers on Friday was identified yesterday by medical examiners as that of Yusuke Terata.
Terata's parents did not take telephone calls yesterday at their hotel. Instead, his mother issued a statement through their attorney in which she addressed her son.
"Yu-kun, you've been in the ship more than eight months," Masumi Terata said in the statement. "Well done. Finally, the whole family is back together. You're not alone any more.
"I know you want to go back to Uwajima."
Only one body, that of Yusuke's classmate, 17-year-old Takeshi Mizuguchi, has yet to be recovered.
Divers will continue to search for Mizuguchi this week, said Lt. j.g. K.C. Choi, a spokesman for the Navy's recovery operation.
Rain forced divers to curtail their search early yesterday afternoon, he said. The operation is expected to resume tomorrow.
Mizuguchi's family remained in Honolulu last night, waiting for word.
Navy and Japanese divers have conducted meticulous searches of the Ehime Maru for the past two weeks, since the wreckage was moved from its original resting place in 2,000 feet of water to shallower water off Honolulu International Airport.
Based on witness accounts, the divers expected to find no more than seven of the nine missing bodies, and possibly as few as five. With 65 percent of the surface of the boat searched, the divers have recovered eight bodies.
"We will continue to search until we are satisfied that we have covered all of the ship," Choi said.
In addition to Terata, the Navy has recovered the bodies of fisheries school instructors Hiroshi Makizawa, 37, and Jun Nakata, 33; crewmen Hiroshi Nishida, 49, Toshimichi Furuya, 47, and Hirotaka Segawa, 60; and students Toshiya Sakashima and Katsuya Nomoto, both 17.
Translator Toshi Erikson contributed to this report.
