Shipwreck key to first Gospel in Japanese

[Hachiko]

The first Japanese translation of the Bible is believed to be an 1837 version of the Gospel According to John. What makes this remarkable, however, is that its writer was a German missionary living in China, taught Japanese by three crew members of a cargo ship, Otokichi, Iwakichi and Kyukichi, who survived 14 months adrift on the ocean, and whose paths crossed his quite by chance.

Japan Times (http://www.japantimes.com/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fl20040829x2.htm)