Episode 45 (739-752) (473-482)

An Bord der Anubis. Ensign Morituris Geschichte: Hiroshima

Ensign Morituris Geschichte: Hiroshima

Trotz seines eigentlich perfekten Namens für den Job wurde Morituri von der Kamikaze-Schule auf Taiwan (Pynchon verwendet den alten Namen «Formosa») wegen seiner „Einstellung” ausgemustert und zum Propagandaministerium versetzt. Weisenburger (p. 217) verdanke ich den Hinweis auf den Film Morituri (The Saboteur, Code Name Morituri) von Bernhard Wicki (1965) mit Marlon Brando, Yul Brynner und Trevor Howard.

“Bernhard Wicki directed this hard-hitting World War II espionage drama. Marlon Brando plays Robert Crain, a German deserter who is coerced by British Intelligence officer Colonel Statter (Trevor Howard) to impersonate a Gestapo officer in order to get aboard a German blockade runner that is conveying a valuable rubber cargo from the Orient. Crain’s assignment is to save the rubber by finding a way to deactivate the explosives that the ship’s captain would use to destroy the ship if captured by the enemy. Crain finds his way aboard the ship, but the ship’s commander Captain Mueller (Yul Brynner), skeptical of the Nazis, refuses to let Crain out of his sight. When survivors of a sunken vessel board the ship, and Crain realizes that his identity may be exposed by two rescued German submarine officers, he incites Mueller’s officers and the new arrivals to mutiny before his true identity is revealed.” (Paul Brenner)

“What if phile changes to phobe?” (473)

“I want only to be with Michiko and our girls, and once I’m there, never to leave Hiroshima again. I think you’d like it there. It’s a city on Honshu, on the Inland Sea, very pretty, a perfect size, big enough for city excitement, small enough for the serenity a man needs.” (480)