The wounds healed slowly. A week later, while I was still in the hospital, I received a letter from Hatsuyo, with personal news no less devastating than the airfield attack.
“I am very, very sorry that I must write this letter,” Hatsuyo wrote, “with all its painful news to you. My dearest friend, Mikiko, died suddenly in a traffic accident on October third. I am at a loss as to what to say. I am bewildered and hurt. I was almost angry at God. Why, why did such a wonderful person as Mikiko have to die at sixteen, and through no fault of her own! I hate myself that I must bring this news to you, one of our fighter pilots who is in combat. But there is no one else who can tell you...”
Hatsuyo’s letter contained a sealed note from Mikiko’s mother, who wrote:
“Poor Mikiko has been talking about you with Hatsuyo-san and our family every day, and she has been looking forward most anxiously to your reply to the letter she forwarded through Hatsuyo-san. But your own wonderful letter did not arrive here until the day of Mikiko’s funeral. Oh, how happy I would have been to have had her read your letter before her death! She was a wonderful daughter, so good-natured, so bright, so angelic!
“Maybe that is why she has been taken by the Almighty so early. I do not know. I have been crying for days. I know that you would have wanted to know that your letter was placed in her bier and accompanied her to Heaven. Please accept my husband’s and also my deepest thanks for having written to her. We now earnestly pray to God that Mikiko’s spirit will protect you in the skies from enemy bullets.”
I did not know what to think. I was dazed and helpless. Several hours later, after lying on my cot and staring at the ceiling, I wrote a long letter to Mikiko’s mother to express my sympathy at her loss. In this letter I enclosed a token sum of money for her family to make some offering at her tomb, in accordance with ancestral tradition.
For several days I was terribly homesick, yearning for the sight of my family, for my mother and my brothers and sisters.
I did not have to wait long before I would again see Japan. Two days later I received rotation orders, directing me to report to the Omura Wing, the air base nearest to my home village. My departure was hardly jubilant. The personnel captain, stony-faced, warned me, “Because of security, you will not tell anybody back in Japan about the disaster. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir. Because of security I will not tell anybody back in Japan about the disaster,” I intoned. Then I saluted and walked out to the field to board the transport plane which would take me home.
CHAPTER 6
I returned to the Omura base in a dark mood. The devastating attack on the airfield, with the loss of many close friends, Mikiko’s death, and my own wounds all contributed to a general despondency. Furthermore, despite the proximity of the air base to my home, I would not be allowed to visit my family until my wounds were completely healed.
I viewed with misgivings my first meeting with the Personnel Commander at Omura. When I was assigned here the previous year, his contempt for and unfriendliness toward all trainees was painfully apparent, and this distaste embraced me as well. To my surprise, the commander grinned broadly at me when I snapped rigidly to attention before his desk. For a few moments he stared at me, surveying my uniform, my face, my eyes, which stared directly ahead. He actually beamed at me! I did not know it, but the news of my solo attack against the twelve Russian bombers, despite the negative results, had preceded my return to Japan. No longer was I the contemptible trainee to be shunted around; the commander informed me that I would be able to rest easily at Omura, that for the time being I was not even to be given any specific assignments. This turn of events was astonishing; enlisted men were not entitled to such treatment.
At the mess hall I realized that my flights in China, with my air victory and the attack against the Russian bombers added for zest, had made me a minor hero to the pilot trainees at the base. It was a wonderful and strange feeling to have these men crowd around me, eager to hear about the air war on the Asian mainland.
For a week I relaxed, sleeping as much as I desired, and watching the students on their training flights. Then I received a letter from a girl whose name I failed to recognize, Fujiko Niori. She wrote:
“I am the sister of Mikiko, and I wish to take this opportunity to thank you with all my heart for your letter to my mother and also for your kind words and attention to my younger sister. Your letter to my family was a ray of sunshine when we were all despondent over Mikiko’s death. I am not ashamed to tell you that we all cried that Mikiko should be lost to us when she was the happiest.
“I must confess that, until your letter arrived, I held the illusion that all fighter pilots were interested only in combat, and that they lacked warmth and emotion. Your letter has, of course, changed that opinion. If it is to be permitted, I wish sincerely to become your friend, especially on behalf of my sister. My happiness will be complete if you will answer this letter.”
In the envelope was a portrait of Fujiko. If anything, the eighteen-year-old girl was even prettier than her sister.
I replied immediately, telling her that I had sustained slight wounds in China, and was now back in Japan to complete my recovery. I told her that the doctors felt I would soon be able to fly again and that, once healed, I hoped I would be able to see her soon afterward.
Her second letter was in my hands in a matter of days. Fujiko wrote at length of her life and the daily events in her town of Tokushima on Shikoku Island. For the next month, with little to do at the Omura air base, I spent much of my time in writing letters to Fujiko, and reading hers several times over. Her correspondence was extremely well written, and I wondered whether or not her initial letter drafts had been edited by her mother, a not uncommon practice!
In November of 1939 I received my first overnight leave in a year, in order to visit my mother and family. With my wounds completely healed, I was anxious to make the trip home. The train ride would be barely more than an hour. At home, I knew, the rice harvesting was over. The paddies and fields would be desolate as winter approached, but this was of little consequence to me. After the drab Chinese mainland, my home province would appear to be nothing less than a garden and, as the train rolled toward the village, I watched the beautiful Kyushu mountains towering into the sky, rich and green with the thick forests, the streams sparkling in the last afternoon sunlight.
I could not believe my eyes as I walked down the road to my old, small house. A big crowd milled about in the yard and, spying me in the road, surged out in a throng to shout their greetings. I was astonished to see my mother accompanied by no less a dignitary than the Village Master! Not only was this esteemed gentleman on hand to welcome me personally, but almost every village official crowded about to extend his hands in warm welcome.
The Village Master in a loud voice proclaimed: “Welcome home, Saburo, the hero of our modest village!” I actually blushed. I had never dreamed that such a thing could happen! I stuttered and tried to tell the Village Master that I was anything but a hero, just a petty officer who had shot down a single Russian fighter.
“Tut, tut,” he interrupted, “enough of your denials. It is all very well to be modest, but we all know that you are the winner of the Emperor’s silver watch in the Navy Fliers School, and that you were selected as our nation’s most promising airman!”
I couldn’t say a word. The events of five years ago flashed into my mind, when I shuffled down this same road, a family and village disgrace, with my own lifelong friends turning their eyes away in shame. Had they known, these people, of how I fumbled, almost helplessly, in my cockpit in that first combat! Or how my captain had been speechless with rage at my conduct. And now...all this! It was overwhelming.
Then a grand barbecue began in the narrow yard. There were heaps of food and many bottles of sake, rice wine. I was still upset and bewildered by the unexpected welcome, until my mother called me aside to whisper, “They have all been so good to us, and all this food has been contributed by the
m in honor of your homecoming! Do not frown and scowl so; return the honor by being pleasant in your manner.”
Everyone present insisted on hearing everything that had happened in China, and they kept interrupting to demand that I tell all the details of my combat against the Russian fighter and how I attacked the Russian bomber formation. It was strange to hear these elderly folk, the most respected of our village, professing their admiration of what I had done. But most wonderful of all were the shining eyes of my mother, who fairly burst with pride for her son. And the rest of the family, my three brothers and my sisters, adorned in their best clothes, sat happy and smiling, just watching the events of the evening. I had precious little time in which to speak to my mother; the festival lasted the better part of the night.
When our guests took their leave, however, I soon realized that our family was still as impoverished as when I left for the Navy. My mother stilled my fears with the assurance that the entire village had helped her in her labors, that our neighbors could not have been kinder.
During my stay in China I had sent the better part of my salary home to the family. There was little use for money in that country. I never drank, or indeed, entertained any girls. Both were considered vices for fighter pilots, and I wished no, criticism leveled at me.
“Saburo,” my mother continued, “we are grateful for the continued help you have given us by sending home most of your pay. But now I wish you to stop. You have been contributing too much of the funds you need for yourself. It is now time that you began to think more of yourself, and to begin saving for your marriage one day.”
I protested heatedly. I had managed to save a tidy sum myself, and had no plans for marriage for a good many years to come. Suddenly I recalled Fujiko, with whom I had been corresponding daily. It occurred to me that, had I remained in my own village instead of enlisting in the Navy and rising to pilot, her family position would not have permitted her to more than speak to me!
Back at Omura, the personnel commander returned me to flying status, and I began a series of intensive training flights, regaining a sure hand at the controls of the fighter planes. The second week in January of 1940, I found my name posted on the bulletin board, with orders notifying me that I had been selected with several other pilots to make an exhibition flight over the large industrial city of Osaka on February 11, our National Foundation Day.
I rushed a letter off to Fujiko, telling her of the flight. Her return letter asked me where we would be staying in Osaka, for “my parents and myself wish to visit you in Osaka on this day.” A visit from the family! It was an honor indeed, for it required a full day’s journey from Tokushima across the Island Sea to Osaka.
The exhibition flight went off easily. Japan looked beautiful from the air, with the neat and orderly fields and rice paddies, the cultivated gardens and parks. I saw school children in their yards, forming characters which read, “Banzai!” as our formation passed overhead. Late that afternoon, with the flight completed, we moved into our rooms in an Osaka hotel.
I had barely shaved and changed into a fresh uniform when one of the non-commissioned pilots dashed down the hall and bellowed lustily, “Pilot Sakai! Get a move on! Your fiancée is downstairs waiting to see you!” Everyone laughed and cheered as I reddened and hurried out.
Fujiko Niori was stunning. I stopped on the stairway and just stared at her, holding my breath. She was dressed in a beautiful kimono, and waited for me with her parents in the portico. I could hardly speak, and it was an effort to take my eyes away from the girl. I stuttered and bowed.
That evening the Niori family took me as their guest for dinner to one of the famous restaurants in downtown Osaka. I had never even been in such a restaurant before!
Fujiko’s parents were wonderful to me, and did their best to make me feel comfortable. But I could not avoid feeling self-conscious, for it was obvious—to them, Fujiko, and myself—that I was being studied and examined as their daughter’s potential groom. Increasing my anguish was the knowledge that the Niori family was one of the most distinguished in Japan, that they came from one of the outstanding Samurai groups in the country, and that Fujiko’s father had attained eminence as a college professor. During the dinner I refused a cup of sake poured for me by Mr. Niori. He smiled and urged me on until I informed him that, as a fighter pilot, I did not drink. My reply, it was obvious, was pleasing to the entire family.
The night ended all too quickly, and the good-byes at the hotel were to be the last for a long time to come. It ended, however, with unspoken but obvious approval of me as Fujiko’s suitor.
Back at Omura, I resumed the dawn-to-dusk training. Spring passed, and then the summer had come and gone. I was still at Omura, cursing the delays which kept me at the training field. What buoyed me up were the letters which came uninterruptedly from Fujiko; in that respect I was filled with hopes and dreams.
But I had become depressed. I received letters from my former pilot friends who still flew in China, who wrote in glowing terms of the air kills they made from week to week. Almost all of them by now were aces, pilots to be feared by the enemy as they wove a pattern of absolute air supremacy in China. The good news came at last, with orders to transfer to the Kaohsiung Air Base on Formosa. It was just one year since I had returned from China, and I was chafing to return to action. By now Kaohsiung had become Japan’s main outer air e, and a transfer there meant combat assignments soon after.
Before I left, however, I bought something I’d wanted for years, a Leica camera with a Sonar 2.0 lens, then considered the best camera in the world. The purchase of a camera would hardly be considered of special importance to most people, I imagine, but it represented more than three months of pay, and it wiped out almost my entire savings. To me the Leica was a beautiful and precision-built gem. I had a special use for this particular type of camera; our fighter planes did not carry the automatic cameras so familiar to American pilots, and the Leica was particularly well suited to aerial photography from a cockpit.
At Kaohsiung I was in for a tremendous surprise. On the airfield I saw strange new fighter planes, as different from the familiar Type 96 Claudes as night from day. These were the new Mitsubishi Zero fighters, sleek and modern. The Zero excited me as nothing else had ever done before. Even on the ground it had the cleanest lines I had ever seen in an airplane. We now had enclosed cockpits, a powerful engine, and retractable landing gear. Instead of only two light machine guns, we were armed with two machine guns and two heavy 20-mm. cannon, as well.
The Zero had almost twice the speed and range of the Claude, and it was a dream to fly. The airplane was the most sensitive I had ever flown, and even slight finger pressure brought instant response. We could hardly wait to meet enemy planes in this remarkable new aircraft.
We put the new fighter to its first test in the occupation of French Indochina, flying top cover for our Army troops which occupied key ground positions. This meant a nonstop flight of 800 miles from Kaohsiung to Hainan Island. This was an incredible distance for a fighter plane, especially with much of the flight over the ocean. It was carried out without a hitch—sheer wonder for us who were accustomed to the short-ranging Claudes.
There was no opposition, however, as we patrolled over the occupation forces moving into Indochina. Except for some minor border skirmishes caused by uninformed regional French troops, our forces moved in quietly and without trouble. the occupation, of course, was conducted “peacefully” meant with local French authorities that prevented open war.
The Zero’s combat trials were postponed until we were rotated back to the Hankow Air Wing in May of 1941. Back in the China theater, we discovered that the enemy pilots had lost heart for fighting. No longer were they aggressive and quick to attack, as were the three Russian fighters which jumped our fifteen Claudes in my first fight. The enemy pilots eluded us at almost every opportunity, and would engage only when they had the advantage of plunging out of the sun in a surprise attack. Their timidity forced us to inva
de deeper and deeper inland to force them to do battle.
On August 11, 1941, I was assigned to one such mission, with the express purpose of forcing the enemy into a fight. It was an 800-mile nonstop flight, from Ichang to Chengtu. This was familiar territory; it was over Ichang, then enemy-held, that I had challenged the twelve Russian bombers.
On our penetration flight we escorted seven twin-engined Mitsubishi Type 1 bombers, better known during World War II as Bettys. The bombers took off from Hankow shortly after midnight, and we picked them up over Ichang. The night was pitch black, and our only landmark was the whitish Yangtze Valley winding its way across the dark country. We arrived at Wenkiang airstrip before dawn, circling slowly until daybreak. Finally the sky lightened. No enemy fighters appeared. We watched the flight leader bank his Zero and dive. That was the signal to strafe.
One after the other we plummeted from the sky toward the airfield, where I saw Russian fighters already moving along the runways on their take-off runs. Their ground crews were running frantically over the field, heading for the trenches.
I pulled out at low altitude, coming up behind one E-16 fighter as it rolled down the field. It was a perfect target, and a short cannon burst exploded the fighter in flames. I flashed across the field and spiraled sharply to the right, climbing steeply to come around for another run. Tracers and flak were to left and right of me, but the Zero’s unexpected speed threw the enemy gunners off.
Other Zero fighters dove and made strafing passes over the runways. Several of the Russian fighters were burning or had crashed. I pulled out of a dive to catch another plane in my sights. A second short cannon burst and there was a mushrooming ball of fire.
There was nothing left to strafe. Our attack had cleared the field of enemy planes, and not a single Russian aircraft was able to fly. The majority either were burning or had exploded. Back at 7,000 feet, we noticed the hangars and other shops burning fiercely from the regular bombing attack. It was a thorough job. We were disappointed in the lack of air opposition, and continued to circle, hoping the towering smoke would draw the enemy planes.
Samurai! Page 5