Yes a great story Don, that must have been a fabulous trip.

Here's a little more background to Hondas first race at the TT.

The nine people, project leader Kiyoshi Kawashima, the five riders and three mechanics, who left Japan, arrived in the Isle of Man, for the first time, on May 5th 1959. They travelled, not as employees of Honda but as temporary workers of the Okura Trading Co. (an export company).

It was the culimination of Soichiro Honda's statement of intent to compete in the Isle of Man, some years earlier.

As it was still relatively close to the end of the second world war and Honda didn't have any exports at that time, the teams passports all indicated that they were temporary employees of Okura which enabled them to gain the relevant travel/exit visas and temporary export licences for the bikes. It also enabled them to obtain the necessary foreign currency they needed, to pay their way, as they were in the Isle of Man for well over a month.

Before they left, Soichiro, or "the Old Man" as he was known all Honda employees, even arranged instruction for the riders and mechanics on 'English table manners' as they were 'representing' Japan.

Bill Hunt, the American , the only rider not to finish the race, was fluent in Japanese also acted as interpreter for the team, and the first job they had to do, after they arrived in the Island 'for training', was to clean all the rust of their machines, which had been sea freighted from Japan. Both race bikes, and the recently launched Honda Benly road bikes which the riders used to learn the course before official practice began.

They also had to throw away the food that they had shipped with the machines, as it had all gone mouldy!

Strangely....I cannot find any reference to Kunihiko Akiyama in Honda's official history pages.