Naozumi Ikeda
Naozumi Ikeda | |
|---|---|
 Naozumi Ikeda with a Type 99 sniper rifle | |
| Born | 16 June 1921 Kanoya, Dayashina |
| Died | 19 August 2012 (aged 91) Kanoya, Dayashina |
| Allegiance |  Imperial Dayashina |
| Service/ | Imperial Dayashinese Army |
| Years of service | 1939-1942 |
| Rank | Gochō |
| Unit | 11th Division |
| Battles/wars | Pan-Septentrion War |
| Awards | Order of the Sacred Treasure, 2nd Class |
Naozumi Ikeda was a sniper who served in the Imperial Dayashinese Army during the Pan-Septentrion War. He served in the 11th Division, which fought on the Helian Front of the Pan-Septentrion War, and is credited with 331 kills. He received the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 2nd Class for exemplary and meritorious military service in 1950.
Early life
Naozumi Ikeda was born on 16 June 1921 in the town of Kanoya in southern Dayashina to Akira and Yua Ikeda, descendants of a long line of prominent farmers and shopkeepers in the Kanoya region. Like the rest of his family, he was a devoted Buddhist, and regularly studied Buddhist text and philosophy, despite receiving little formal education. He was raised with one younger brother and two elder sisters to maintain the expanse of land maintained by the family, but was recruited into the Kanoya Region Military Academy at the age of 17.
Military career
At the age of 18, Ikeda trained as a sniper on the grounds of the Kanoya Region Military Academy, before being assigned as a Gochō in the 11th Division of the Imperial Dayashinese Army. He made use of a Type 99 sniper rifle with a 4x telescopic sight, while his spotter, Hiromichi Nagano, used a Type 39 sub-machine gun. Ikeda would be shipped to Sundan in 1939 with the 11th Division on counter-insurgency operations, where he played a prominent role in the neutralisation of native insurgencies as well as the pockets of still-resisting Anglian troops. He would become well-respected amongst his comrades during this campaign, accruing 191 confirmed kills and notably saving the lives of dozens of troops thanks to his accurate return-fire against ambushes. Following the year-long deployment in Sundan, the 11th Division would be involved in the invasion of Dickenson in 1940, where Ikeda would sustain a blast and concussion wound from a nearby anti-personnel mine during the Bitter Morning engagement, which would render him unable to participate for the rest of the battle. Thanks to care received at Kiozuki Hospital back in Dayashina, Ikeda would make a full recovery over the course of a year and a half and would return to active service with the 11th Division on Dickenson in late 1941. He would remain there to participate in the defence of Dickenson from allied invasion in 1942, where he would accrue a total of 140 confirmed kills against Glasic and Anglian forces, making him the deadliest individual combatant of Helian War. He sustained 7 wounds of varying degrees throughout the battle, mostly from explosives, which rendered him incapacitated by the end. As Lieutenant-General (Rikugun-Chūjō) Kosuke Morishita surrendered the 11th Division, the bodies of Ikeda and Nagano were found by mistake, in extremely close proximity to allied lines, both knocked out from a concussion blast and riddled with wounds old and new. They were picked up by medical personnel and surrendered alongside the rest of their division. Ikeda would remain on the island as a prisoner of war until its end in 1946.
Various accounts from members of the 11th Division point to Ikeda's proficiency as a sniper, applying the mobilty, stealth, and diversion tactics taught to IDA snipers to their highest degree of effectiveness. In a 1971 interview, Lieutenant-General (Rikugun-Chūjō) Kosuke Morishita pointed to his "mythical" accuracy at range which regularly allowed elements of the 11th Division to operate more freely in proximity to enemy lines and proved critical in saving the lives of troops who found themselves pinned down or in dire positions. Morishita also noted that Ikeda often showed little regard for his own safety, especially during the defence of Dickenson, wherein he would regularly operate behind enemy lines and in areas with little more than visual cover to work with, which influenced Morishita to recommend him for the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 2nd Class in 1950. Historians from across the world contest Ikeda's total kill count, with some placing it at no more than 250 and others placing it as high as 450, mostly due to the difficulty of accurately corresponding accounts and data across people and locations, but a general consensus has formed at exactly 331 as of 2016.
Further service
Ikeda would serve as a sniper instructor during the Hanhae War, training over 120 Dayashinese and Hanhaean soldiers. After he retired from the Dayashinese military, he would return to Kanoya for a brief period of time before he traveled to Fyrland as part of the East Hemithean volunteers in the North Abyaalan War after being recruited to the cause by Kantaro Kikuchi, the brother of Kazuo Kikuchi who also served in the 11th Division. There, he would train Fyrish sniper units for a period of five years before returning to Dayashina in 1966.
Later life and death
Ikeda spent the remainder of his life in Kanoya, starting a family of his own and working the farmland that had remained in his family's possession in the same way since he left it. Routinely denying interviews from the press after they had rediscovered his service history after interviewing his divisional commander in 1971, he was described by locals as a hermit who rarely left his family's grounds. His children and grandchildren noted that when he wasn't tending to them or responsibilities on the farm, he spent most of his time studying and practising Buddhism. According to Nobuzuki Ikeda, Naozumi very rarely mentioned his time in the war, and nobody made it a point to bother him with it by asking. Instead, Naozumi made his personal written accounts of the war readily available whenever anyone in his family desired to read them. The Ikeda family grounds were regularly visited by members of the 11th Division and his later trainees, which gave him the idea to open up a small hostel for the occasional visitors and more common passersby. Ikeda passed away in 2012 at the age of 91.