“Rank doesn’t matter when we’re playing go. But, of course, that only lasts until the air-raid siren sounds.”
Everyone laughed at that. In those days, we got occasional air raids from Port Moresby. As soon as there was a report of incoming enemy aircraft, we ground crew started the engines of the Zeros so they could scramble. If our fighters couldn’t launch in time to intercept the enemy, we had to hide them in bunkers, and the same went for any planes that weren’t going up.
But just because the lieutenant commander told us to be at ease didn’t mean we could bring ourselves to relax. “Well then,” he said, looking around at us, “I order all of you to be at ease.” And finally everyone sat down on stools or the bare earth.
After all this, you might expect that Tsukino was just a casual player. But that wasn’t so. He was extremely strong and dealt a crushing defeat to CPO Hashida, the strongest player among the mechanics.
“Against the real pros, I take a handicap of two stones,” the lieutenant commander said. Back then I didn’t know just how advanced that meant he was, but after seeing him handily put the screws to Hashida, I could tell he was incredibly skilled.
After that day, the lieutenant commander would occasionally drop by to watch our park go. He would always bring steamed buns and such, which delighted us. On most occasions, he would simply watch, a smile on his face.
He was a go lover through and through and seemed to hold it in greater esteem than shogi chess.
On one occasion he said, “Apparently Admiral Yamamoto likes shogi a great deal, but knows nothing of go. If he knew how to play go, I think this war would’ve been fought very differently.”
This was a very hazardous thing to say. It could easily be assumed that his comparison of shoji and go was meant as criticism of Admiral Yamamoto.
“If I may inquire, sir, how are shoji and go different?” someone asked.
“In chess, if you take the king, the game’s over. No matter how weak your force is, no matter how badly you’re losing, if you cut off the enemy boss’s head, you win.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s similar to Nobunaga Oda’s tiny force of 2,000 troops crushing Yoshimoto Imagawa’s 25,000-strong army. Under normal circumstances, 2,000 soldiers could never defeat a force of 25,000. But take Imagawa’s head and it’s over. Chess is the same.”
“And go is different, sir?”
He gave a small nod. “Go originated in ancient China. Since a go board has 361 points, the Chinese must have used it to augur the coming year, or something of the sort, before it became a war simulation. Surrounding a larger area of the board with one’s stones than the opponent—it became a game where you tried to dominate the vast Chinese landmass, so to speak. Go is about countries seizing territory from one another.”
“Is it also like fighting with the Americans over control of the Pacific?”
“Yes, you could say that. In the Russo-Japanese War, our Combined Fleet destroyed the Baltic Fleet and won the war. Ever since, the Combined Fleet has worked on the assumption that defeating the enemy’s king—the main fleet—amounts to victory. But this current war isn’t one that can be won by simply taking the enemy’s king like in chess.”
The unexpected weightiness of the lieutenant commander’s words reverberated in our hearts. We were indeed fighting over the Pacific against the Americans and their formidable waves of materiel. It was apparent to all of us that winning would be no easy feat.
I looked at the go board before me. After the war I would develop a taste for the game, but at that time I was totally clueless. Even so, looking at the state of the match gave me a strange impression. The black and white stones scattered around the board started looking to me like islands dotting the Pacific Ocean. That odd feeling was what got me started playing go after the war.
Lt. Cdr. Tsukino muttered, “What a war Admiral Yamamoto has started.”
* * *
—
I’m rambling on at length about this because, as I mentioned, Miyabe-san liked go, too, and I watched him play just once. His opponent was none other than Lt. Cdr. Tsukino.
That day, too, the lieutenant commander had dropped by the ground crew barracks to watch the men play go. He suddenly caught sight of Miyabe-san and said, “Hey, you bastard, do you play, too?”
The lieutenant commander must have not seen too many airmen hanging out with mechanics. Yes. Miyabe-san, too, occasionally came over to watch our park go.
“I do, sir,” he replied.
The lieutenant commander nodded. “All right, want to play a game?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Miyabe-san said, bowing deeply and taking a seat. “I’d just like the first move,” Miyabe-san said, drawing the black stones toward him.
We were astonished. Even with a handicap of two stones, let alone going first, Hashida, the best among the mechanics, was no match for Lt. Cdr. Tsukino.
But the officer didn’t seem offended in the slightest as he reached out for a white stone.
The game began. At first, the lieutenant commander placed his stones quickly, while Miyabe-san’s moves were more deliberate.
I wish I could explain exactly what happened on the board, but I only learned the game after the war was over. At that time, I couldn’t understand much about the battle unfolding between them. However, sometime around the middle, the lieutenant commander suddenly began to think for a lot longer before placing a stone. Miyabe-san kept placing his at the same steady pace. After his opponent put down a stone, Miyabe-san tarried for a few moments, then slowly picked up a stone and placed it on the board so gently that it barely made a sound. It was nothing like when the mechanics played, slamming the stones loudly onto the board.
The lieutenant commander started letting out groans towards the end. We thought he might be losing. We’d have gone nuts over it if he did. We bore the lieutenant commander no ill will, but the prospect of an NCO besting an officer was incredibly thrilling even if it was just a game. Anticipation swelled among us.
Once the game was over and the tally was taken, Lt. Cdr. Tsukino had won by just one stone.
Everyone was quick to congratulate him on his victory, but at heart we were all very disappointed.
“Thank you very much, sir,” Miyabe-san said, bowing low.
“No, no, I should be thanking you,” the lieutenant commander replied in a hurry, bowing in return. Then, staring fixedly at the finished game board, he said, “What’s your name, bastard?”
Miyabe-san stood up at attention and stated his name and rank.
“FPO1 Miyabe, huh? Might I ask you for a rematch?”
“Of course, sir.”
Miyabe-san bowed deeply. The lieutenant commander smiled broadly, and this time he gathered the black stones on his side of the board. Everyone was stunned. You might already know this, but in go the better player takes white. Black goes first and has the advantage, and the white player needs to have the skills to overcome that initial disadvantage over the course of the game. Nowadays, in professional matches, the white player receives a handicap of six and a half stones, but back then there were no such rules.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, sir,” Miyabe-san said, trying to take a black stone.
“No, I’m black.” The lieutenant commander stilled Miyabe-san’s hand.
Miyabe-san had no choice but to draw the white stones to his side. But what happened next was even more surprising.
Lt. Cdr. Tsukino placed two black stones on the board. “I think even this isn’t enough, but allow me one match thus.”
“Understood, sir. If you’ll suffer me,” Miyabe-san agreed.
Lt. Cdr. Tsukino had boasted that he only needed a two-stone handicap against a pro, so for him to place two stones meant that Miyabe-san was practically a pro.
This game progressed differently from the first, with both of them taking their
time before placing their stones.
The game ended halfway through when the lieutenant commander suddenly resigned. As I didn’t know go back then, I had no idea why, but even the better players among the mechanics were cocking their heads, so I guess it seemed abrupt to the entire gallery. But Miyabe-san didn’t seem particularly surprised and just silently bowed his head.
“I’m no match for you,” the lieutenant commander said. “Petty Officer Miyabe, did you study go under an expert?”
“Yes, sir, I studied with Master Kensaku Segoe.”
“Master Segoe…Go Seigen’s mentor.”
Everyone knew the name Go Seigen. A prodigy from China who’d stirred up excitement among go aficionados in prewar Japan, he was renowned even outside that world. There was even a senryu, a humorous haiku, that went, “Go Seigen, for whom the dancing girls secretly yearn.” Dancing girls being young apprentice geisha, you see. I believe Go Seigen is still alive today. He’s over ninety years old and still studying go.
It’s only thanks to that day that I remember a name like Kensaku Segoe.
“So, did you intend to become a go expert?” Lt. Cdr. Tsukino asked.
“No, sir,” Miyabe-san replied. “I had wanted to for a time, but my father forbade it.”
“I see.” The lieutenant commander didn’t ask any more questions, instead picking up the stones on the board. “Thank you. This game was educational for me. If we get a chance for another match, I would like you to school me again.”
Miyabe-san bowed deeply.
But they would never play another match.
Two weeks later, Lieutenant Commander Tsukino was transferred to fleet duty and boarded the destroyer Ayanami. He went down with her during the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal towards the end of that year.
After the lieutenant commander headed back towards the officers’ quarters, Miyabe-san sat down on the root of a palm tree some distance from the barracks. I followed and sat down next to him.
“So you used to play go for real, PO1 Miyabe.”
“My father liked to, and he made me at first. But I really took a shine to it, and by the time I started middle school, I wanted to become a professional player.”
“Your father was opposed to it, sir?”
“He was a businessman and wanted me to follow in his footsteps. But I kept studying go even though my father objected. I took lessons with Master Segoe in secret. I couldn’t afford the tuition, but the master kindly said I didn’t need to pay. I took his word at face value.”
“He sounds like a wonderful teacher.”
“Well, as it turns out, my father had been paying my tuition to Master Segoe the whole time without telling me. My father’s love for go was second to none, so while he didn’t want me to go professional, he must have wanted me to get good at it.”
“So what happened?”
“Soon after, he dabbled in stocks and his business went under. He owed a great deal of money to creditors, and our family ended up bankrupt. He said he needed to kill himself in order to satisfy his creditors, and hanged himself.”
I realized that Miyabe-san had told me something very grave. Yet he continued to speak in a dispassionate tone.
“Our family that he left behind had a hard time of it. I had to drop out of middle school. My mother fell ill and soon passed away. In just half a year, I became entirely alone in the world. I had no money, no family, and no relations that I could turn to. I didn’t know what else to do so I signed up with the Navy.”
This was the first I’d heard of Miyabe-san’s past.
“Master Segoe said to me, ‘I’ll look after you, so become my apprentice.’ But he wasn’t well-off, either, so I declined his offer. I figured if I failed to get into the Navy, I’d become an apprentice in some shop or another.”
Incredible. Miyabe-san’s no different than me, I thought. Most non-commissioned officers in the Navy were farmers’ sons who’d left home to reduce the number of mouths that had to be fed. Unless you were the eldest, the son of a farmer typically had to choose between becoming an apprentice in a city or joining the military. Only a handful of kids were able to attend middle school. And in fact, many Naval Academy students weren’t from affluent families, either. Military academies were free, so a good number of smart kids who couldn’t afford regular high schools went there instead. Japan was really poor back then, and a class society to an extent that’s hard even to imagine today.
Miyabe-san wasn’t the younger son of a farmer. But due to family misfortune, like us, he’d had no choice but to join the military.
I, myself, was the third son of a tenant farmer. After graduating from an ordinary primary school, I went to work at a local soy sauce factory. When it went bankrupt, I found myself with nowhere to go. So I enlisted in the Navy. It’s probably impossible for young people these days to imagine such a thing, but we joined the military just to keep ourselves fed.
“Are you going to try to become a pro after this war is over, sir?” I asked Miyabe-san.
He laughed. Perhaps he thought it was funny that I was assuming the war was going to end. “Impossible,” he said. “I’ve lost too much precious time to become a professional.”
“But if you work hard…”
“Becoming a professional is all about how much you can learn during your teens. I wasn’t able to at all, and I’m already twenty-three. Even if the war were to end right now and I studied my head off, I’d never be able to go professional.”
“That’s a shame, sir.”
“Not really,” Miyabe-san shrugged off my sympathy. “When I was a kid, trivial things could upset or delight me. As a middle schooler, I really wrestled over whether to attend First Higher School or become a professional go player. And when both dreams were shattered, I was extremely distraught. But compared to the deaths of my parents, it was nothing.”
He laughed. “Looking back now, even that wasn’t such a big deal. We face more terrifying things on a regular basis in this war. Lots of men are dying every day. Just think of how many bereaved family members there are back home.”
I couldn’t bring myself to voice agreement. Death in battle was considered an honor, a joy. Nobody could publicly express sorrow over such deaths. Miyabe-san’s words could quickly get him labeled “un-Japanese.”
He noticed my perplexed expression and smiled, a little sadly. After a moment he said, “Do you know what my greatest dream is right now?”
“What is it, sir?”
“To survive this war and go home to my family.”
I remember feeling incredibly disappointed by that statement. Is that really something that an Imperial Navy fighter pilot should say? So the rumors that he’s a coward are true, I thought.
For me back then, “home” and “family” were things that you left behind, and my parents were people who supported my going out into the world. Wanting to go back struck me as unmanly. I hadn’t even an inkling of the concept that being a man might mean protecting and taking care of family. I only understood after the war ended, when I was discharged from the service, got married, and set up house. Well, actually, I still didn’t quite get it then. It wasn’t until I had a child of my own that I saw that my life was not mine alone and that “family” is something a man carries on his back with all his might. Only then did I feel the true weight of Miyabe-san’s wish to go back home to his family. How embarrassing.
I’m going to change the subject. Guess what my current favorite activity is?
It’s go. We play easy-going games of go at the seniors’ club. It’s the highlight of my week. Too bad Miyabe-san can’t play and teach me once.
* * *
—
Starting in the summer of ’43, Rabaul suffered near-daily raids. The Lae airfield, once home to the stalwarts of the Tainan Air Corps, fell into enemy hands, other islands in the area were being recaptur
ed, and Rabaul was in a very precarious position.
And towards the end of 1943, the Grumman F6Fs arrived on the scene. These new fighters were far more powerful than their F4F predecessors.
Once, I saw close up an F6F that had crashed at Rabaul and was dumbstruck. The fuselage was certainly intimidating, but the engine in particular was absolutely massive, a total monster. The impact of the crash had damaged it badly, but the chief mechanic estimated its output at 2,000 horsepower—double that of a Zero. The heavy armament and thick bulletproof armor enabled by that power were impressive.
Under the supervision of the chief mechanic, the whole crew disassembled and studied the engine. Even I could tell that it was very finely crafted. The chief just shook his head and said, “It’ll be next to impossible to build such an engine in Japan.”
The Grummans weren’t the only superior fighters used by the enemy. There was also the Sikorsky, a cutting-edge fighter with a high-power engine and wings that resembled upside-down gulls. We mechanics felt like a new era was upon us.
The pilots in our air corps confirmed that the Americans’ latest fighters were indeed excellent. Nevertheless, the Zero fighter pilots of Rabaul kept bravely facing those sterling enemy aircraft.
At that point, we were no longer trying to invade Guadalcanal like before and mostly intercepting incoming enemy aircraft, so our fighter pilots had the geographical advantage in battle. They could engage in combat without worrying about running out of fuel or bullets. If worse came to worse, they could parachute out and still live. By then most pilots were wearing them into battle.
Even so, it was definitely not an easy situation. The cutting-edge F6Fs and Sikorskys were superior to the Zeros, and their numbers were just overwhelming. Some two hundred would show up for each air raid, and we could launch at most fifty Zeros to intercept them. No matter how many enemy planes we managed to shoot down, it barely seemed to hurt them, while replacement planes, not to mention pilots, were hard for us to come by.
Gradually the Zeros were driven to the brink.
The Eternal Zero Page 19