Samurai!

by Martin Caiden

  On May 8 and 9 I destroyed two more enemy fighters, a P-39 and a P-40, in sweeps over Moresby. On the tenth I shot down a P-39 with a record low consumption of ammunition-only four cannon shells. It was the best shooting I had ever done, and the lowest number of ammunition rounds ever required to destroy an enemy plane. I was flying over the Coral Sea with Honda and Yonekawa as my wingmen. After some fifteen minutes of patrolling we noticed a lone Airacobra flying about 3,000 feet over our fighters, cruising slowly. The pilot seemed oblivious to everything; he maintained his course as we approached from behind and below.

  I kept gaining altitude from directly beneath his belly, where the pilot was completely blind unless taking evasive action in a deliberate search for other planes. Honda and Yonekawa were about 200 yards below me, flying cover position.

  Incredibly, the P-39 allowed me to close in. He had not the slightest idea that I was coming up on him. I kept narrowing the distance until I was less than twenty yards beneath the enemy fighter. He still had no idea I was there! The opportunity was too good to waste: I snapped several pictures with my Leica. My speedometer showed 130 knots, and I marked this figure down as the cruising speed for the P-39.

  The amazing formation flight of my Zero and the P-39 continued. With Honda and Yonekawa sliding up to catch the Airacobra if he should catch sight of me and dive, I climbed slowly until I was off to the right and slightly below the enemy plane. I could see the pilot clearly and I still could not understand his stupidity in not searching the sky around him. He was a big man, wearing a white cap. I studied him for several seconds, then dropped below his fighter.

  I aimed carefully before firing, and then jabbed lightly for a moment on the cannon trigger. There was a cough and (I discovered later) two shells from each weapon burst out. I saw two quick explosions along the bottom of the P-39’s right wing, and two others in the center of the fuselage. The P-39 broke in two! The two fuselage halves tumbled crazily as they fell, then disintegrated into smaller pieces. The pilot did not bail out.

  CHAPTER 14

  SEVERAL weeks at Lae taught me a new respect for the luxury of sleep. Life at the airdrome was reduced to its simplest terms. During the day we either flew fighter missions or waited on stand-by alert. At night we wished only to sleep. The enemy, however, had other ideas about the matter, and almost unfailingly his bombers punctured the darkness to string rows of bombs against the field and to send ribbons of tracers into the ground as they passed over at low height.

  We could dispense with the foods we desired most, live in shacks, and fly from a primitive field, but we could not go without sleep. And the Americans and Australians exerted every effort to keep us awake at night.

  It became so bad that often we abandoned our billets. Pilots went out to the runway after dark and slept in the craters dug that same night by enemy bombs. Our theory, afforded substance by an overwhelming desire to sleep, was that there was little probability of an enemy bomb striking exactly where one had fallen previously. I have no concept of the law of probabilities involved, but I do know that less than six pilots were killed in enemy night attacks during our entire tour of duty at Lae.

  The constant attacks, almost daily flying, and primitive living conditions reduced tempers to hair-trigger status. Nothing less than the most exemplary conduct on the part of our officers prevented serious friction among the pilots—and this I consider the most remarkable fact of all at our jungle outpost.

  Our base commander, Captain Masahisa Saito, was a Samurai officer who maintained about himself an air of reserve and dignity—sharply different from that of the attention-demanding, caste-conscious Army officers who surrounded General Hideki Tojo at Tokyo. Quiet, yet authoritative, Saito was regarded with devoted respect by all his men. He was careful always to be the last man to enter shelter when enemy bombers attacked Lae. Despite the sluggishness of some of us, we never failed to see Captain Saito waiting—sometimes impatiently, if the bombs were already exploding!—for a pilot to come scrambling to the dugout. The captain would walk slowly from his billet or the Command Post to the shelter trenches, look up at the skies, and scan the field to see that all of his men had taken cover. And only then would he himself seek protection. Needless to say, this action had a wonderful effect on his subordinates. It is one of those unexplainable things, but this brave officer survived the war without suffering a wound.

  But the most unforgettable man of my combat life was Lieutenant Junichi Sasai, my direct superior, who led perhaps Japan’s strongest fighter squadron. Under Sasai’s command were four of Japan’s leading aces—Nishizawa, Ota, Takatsuka, and myself. It is no exaggeration to say that every man who flew with Sasai would not have hesitated even a moment to die in defense of the young lieutenant. I have recounted how his personal intervention aided me so greatly during the unpleasant voyage from Bali to Rabaul. More than once I wondered at the time about his presence, and felt inclined to believe it was an hallucination—it was not only unprecedented, but unthinkable, that a squadron commander should reduce himself to the status of an orderly to attend a man at his sickbed. And yet, this was what Sasai did.

  Twenty-seven years old and unmarried, Sasai kept in his billet an image of Yoshitsune, the legendary Japanese war hero.

  Sasai disdained the demands of the naval caste system, and paid no more attention to the appearance of his clothes than any of the other pilots. Again, this may seem a small point upon which to dwell, but it was a mountainous matter in the Japanese officer code.

  After our arrival at Lae, I was amazed to witness Sasai’s intimate interest in the welfare and health of his pilots. When a man was stricken with malaria or other tropical disease, including the vicious fungi which rotted away a man’s flesh, Sasai was the first to be at his side, tending him, soothing him, and raising incredible hell with the hospital orderlies to assure his pilot’s continued and constant ministrations. In order to help his men, he exposed himself without flinching to some of the worst diseases man has ever known. To us he became almost legendary. Men who did not hesitate to kill and who lusted for battle wept shamelessly when they witnessed Sasai’s deeds, and pledged eternal loyalty to the young officer.

  One night we watched in wonder as Sasai entered the hospital to go to the side of a pilot stricken with a fungus which was eating painfully at his flesh. Nobody knew whether or not the disease was communicable, only that it was horrible. Yet it was Sasai who tended the unfortunate; it was Sasai who forfeited sleep; it was Sasai who comforted.

  And all this was done in defiance of what was probably the strictest military caste system in the world, where a breach of that caste by a subordinate could result in discipline—justified in the mind of the superior officer—by brutal beating or even by death. Even here at Lae, barely more than a jungle outpost, the hierarchy system was strictly maintained. It was unthinkable that there should be a breach of respect, no matter how slight, to an officer.

  Sasai especially would have had just cause to fall back upon this caste distinction if he so wished, for he was a graduate of Eta Jima, Japan’s Annapolis. Perhaps the other officers objected; I do not know. But Sasai often forfeited the more comfortable accommodations of the officers’ billet with its lesser crowding, and spent much of his time with us.

  He took every precaution to assure our health. One of the medical requirements at Lae was that we take quinine pills every other day for protection against malaria. Because of their bitter taste, these were unpalatable to the pilots. Sasai treated the men almost like children when he discovered them ignoring their quinine doses. He would take several of the bitter pills in his mouth, chew them, and lick his lips. The average man could not refrain from spitting these out violently, but not Sasai. No man who watched his own squadron commander go through this routine would dare to complain of the quinine’s bitterness!

  When I was alone with Sasai, I expressed my wonder at his ability to eat the quinine in this extraordinary fashion.

  “Don’t take me for a hypocrite,�
�� Sasai explained quietly, “I hate them just as badly as anyone. But my men must be kept from malaria. Actually, I’m doing for them exactly what my mother did for me when I was ill as a child.”

  In our many conversations Sasai told me of his childhood, of years of illness, of being bedridden. He told me with some embarrassment of whimpering at having to take medicine, of how his mother would pretend she enjoyed the medicine her sickly youngster needed in order to live.

  Because of his mother’s years of devotion, Sasai’s health gradually improved. He made an intense effort to build his weakened body, often suffering great pain to gain stamina. In high school he lost his sickly appearance and finally became a judo champion. In the Naval Academy and at the Fliers School, Sasai had stood out as a leading student and in athletics.

  As the months passed at Lae and the air battles grew in intensity, our supplies gradually diminished. Despite the excellent fighting record of our own wing of Zero fighters, we found it impossible to pin down the Allies. They appeared in ever-growing numbers in the air. Coupled with their always persistent aggressiveness, they proved a formidable force, indeed. Their fighters and bombers prowled over the islands and ocean area by day and by night, smashing at our supply ships in devastating attacks. American submarines also took a fearful toll.

  As a result, our Navy was forced to hide its ships by day and resort to the cloak of darkness to move its supplies. But such movements were always inadequate and even the trickle of supplies delivered by surface shipping fell off. In desperation the Navy commandeered its submarines to deliver supplies to us. This was at best a compromise with necessity, for the submarines were severely limited in their capacity. Eventually we were reduced to shipments of only the most critical goods needed to continue fighting. As a result, even the few luxuries we had were reduced to the barest minimum. Beer or cigarettes were coveted by the men, and even these were never issued except as a reward when our pilots scored great victories in the air without loss to our own forces. The majority of the pilots did not drink. Cigarettes, however, were in great demand to meet the needs of many men who were inveterate smokers.

  What galled the men was that the flying personnel were denied cigarettes except on occasions of registering a severe defeat upon the enemy in air combat. This did not, however, deter the officers from following their caste system and issuing daily to the nonflying officer personnel a regular cigarette ration. We cursed the administration officers, men who never flew, who smoked freely while the combat pilots—because of their enlisted status—could not do the same.

  Captain Saito normally inspected the enlisted pilots’ billets once every two weeks. On these inspections he always managed to “forget” his cigarette case on a desk or bunk. Nishizawa gratefully helped himself to about half of the base commander’s supply from the case, and then distributed his “find” to the other pilots. But Saito did not come very often.

  Finally I lost patience, and took a desperate chance. I sent my men to the native community with orders to buy native cigars. We were strictly forbidden to smoke the local tobacco, for fear that it might contain narcotics. With a package of the evil-smelling cheroots I summoned the other pilots to a far corner of the airfield. They looked at me in astonishment, hesitating to risk the wrath of higher authority by disobeying direct orders. “I’ll take full responsibility for these cigars, and you smoke them,” I told the group.

  Without a word each man took a cigar from me as I passed among them. We all lit up.

  I knew that when an officer sighted our group clustered together he would come over, and within fifteen minutes Lieutenant Sasai ran up to us with astonishment on his face. One look at the cigars was enough. “What are you doing? Have you all gone crazy?” he shouted. “Throw those things away!” Several of the men flushed with embarrassment at the unusual tone from Sasai, and hurled their cigars on the ground. Nishizawa and I refused to do so, and remained smoking.

  Sasai’s eyes opened wide at this refusal to obey orders. “What’s the matter with you two?” he asked. “You know that smoking those things is against regulations!”

  His questions was what I had hoped for. I took a deep breath and told Sasai exactly what I thought of the system which denied the combat pilots tobacco, but permitted officers who never subjected themselves to enemy guns to smoke freely. I rambled on for a while, telling Sasai whatever punishment he could give me was worth the smoking. Nishizawa stood by my side, silent as usual, puffing great clouds of smoke.

  Sasai bit his lips in anger, and his face clouded. Another officer would not have hesitated to kick me as hard as he could. I turned away from Sasai—guilty at having treated this fine officer in such a shameful fashion—but went right back to smoking again. The other pilots stared at Nishizawa and me in wonder—they had never seen or even heard of an officer being defied so brazenly before.

  Sasai disappeared. Several minutes later we saw the lone air-base sedan trailing a cloud of dust as it bore down upon our group with breakneck speed. The vehicle braked screechingly to a halt. Sasai angrily flung the door open, dragging two large duffel bags behind him.

  He did not say a word as he opened the tops of the two bags, each bulging with packs of cigarettes!

  “Take these and divide them among yourselves,” he said, “and don’t ask any questions as to where they came from.”

  He looked out the car window as he drove off. “And throw those damned cigars away!” he shouted.

  We called Sasai the “Flying Tiger.” This name had nothing to do with the American Volunteer Group, the Flying Tigers, in China. Lieutenant Sasai always wore a belt with a large silver buckle on which was engraved the picture of a roaring tiger, Sasai’s father, a retired Navy captain, had made three buckles before the war and presented one to Sasai, his only son, and one to each of the husbands of his two daughters, both naval lieutenant commanders. According to Japanese legend a tiger goes out for one thousand miles to prowl on his hunt, and always returns from his adventure. This was the significance of Sasai’s engraved buckle.

  Sasai was a talented pilot, but during April and early May he accounted for few victories in the air, a failure stemming directly from his lack of combat experience. Nishizawa, Ota, Takatsuka, and I were determined to see to it that Sasai emerged from his cocoon and blossomed into a full-fledged ace. We took special pains to teach the lieutenant the fine points of aerial combat. We spent many a long hour in our billets explaining the mistakes to avoid in the air and the means to assure a kill. Sasai especially had difficulty with adjusting his range finder during a dogfight, and repeatedly we went through mock battles to help him to overcome this deficiency.

  On May 12 we found the opportunity to test the results of our instructions. Sasai responded perfectly by scoring—in a breathless diving and zooming sweep which took less than twenty seconds—three victories unassisted.

  We were flying near Moresby in our regular morning patrol of fifteen Zeros in five V formations when I sighted three Airacobras about a mile to our right, and 1,500 feet below us. Their formation was unusual—the three fighters flew in a column with about 200 yards’ distance between each plane. I pulled along Sasai’s plane, and pointed out the enemy fighters. He nodded, and I gestured for him to go ahead and make the attack. He waved his hand and grinned, and we followed as he turned sharply to the right and dove.

  He hit the first Airacobra in a perfect firing pass. His Zero pounced on the unsuspecting enemy plane from above and behind; he rolled to the right and fired his cannon as he closed in. His aim was excellent; the Airacobra burst into flames and fell apart in the air. Sasai pulled out of his dive and hauled back in a steep climb, rolling out 1,500 feet above and to the left of the second fighter. It seemed incredible, but the P-39 pilot maintained his original course. From his point of vantage Sasai dove, rolled to the right to adjust his firing course, and raked the P-39 from tail to nose. The fighter lurched, skidded into a wild spin, and plunged for the earth. The pilot failed to get out, probably de
ad from the cannon shells.

  Sasai continued his attack in the same manner, climbing steeply and rolling over for the third attack, but the last pilot was not to be caught so easily. Even as Sasai began rolling to the right, the P-39’s nose lifted steeply as the pilot began a loop, but too late. The plane was hauled up in the beginning of the loop when Sasai poured a stream of cannon shells into the fuselage and left wing. It was too much for the American plane, at the moment already under tremendous pressure from the loop. The left wing tore loose and instantly the plane whipped into a flat spin, trapping the pilot. Even I was astonished. Nishizawa grinned broadly at me from his cockpit as we rejoined the formation. Sasai was now an ace with his perfect one-two-three.

  Sasai’s lessons for the day were not over—but it was a different and more harrowing one he was about to learn. On the return to Lae, Sasai’s fighter trio moved nearly two miles ahead of the main formation. I was so pleased with the lieutenant’s new status as an ace that I failed to pay attention to the widening gulf of his V flight, a failure which had almost fatal consequences.

  We were crossing the Owen Stanley Range, Sasai’s fighters well ahead of us, when a lone Airacobra plunged like an arrow from a high cloud layer directly at the unsuspecting Zeros, Never did I regret our lack of radios as much as I did at that moment. There was no way to warn Sasai; despite my speed of almost 300 knots with the engine on maximum overboost, I could not reach the P-39 in time to draw him off. Fortunately for Sasai, the enemy pilot did not make his attack from above. Instead, he chose the “submarine approach,” diving below and behind the other fighters, then pulling up in a rapid zoom and firing from below.

  I was less than 800 yards away when the P-39 hauled up in a screaming climb to hit Sasai from below. In desperation I jammed down on the cannon trigger, hoping the report would warn Sasai or possibly alarm the enemy pilot into breaking off his attack. The P-39 did not waver, but Sasai finally heard the cannon reports. Immediately, with his wing-men hugging his own plane, he pulled up in a loop, swinging wide in a bid for height.