Samurai!

by Martin Caiden

  I could not believe what I saw; the Wildcat continued flying almost as if nothing had happened. A Zero which had taken that many bullets into its vital cockpit would have been a ball of fire by now. I could not understand it. I slammed the throttle forward and closed in to the American plane, just as the enemy fighter lost speed. In a moment I was ten yards ahead of the Wildcat, trying to slow down. I hunched my shoulders, prepared for the onslaught of his guns. I was trapped.

  No bullets came. The Wildcat’s guns remained silent. The entire situation was unbelievable. I dropped my speed until our planes were flying wing-to-wing formation. I opened my cockpit window and stared out. The Wildcat’s cockpit canopy was already back, and I could see the pilot clearly. He was a big man, with a round face. He wore a light khaki uniform. He appeared to be middle-aged, not as young as I had expected.

  For several seconds we flew along in our bizarre formation, our eyes meeting across the narrow space between the two planes. The Wildcat was a shambles. Bullet holes had cut the fuselage and wings up from one end to the other. The skin of the rudder was gone, and the metal ribs stuck out like a skeleton. Now I could understand his horizontal flight, and also why the pilot had not fired. Blood stained his right shoulder, and I saw the dark patch moving downward over his chest. It was incredible that his plane was still in the air.

  But this was no way to kill a man! Not with him flying helplessly, wounded, his plane a wreck. I raised my left hand and shook my fist at him, shouting, uselessly, I knew, for him to fight instead of just flying along like a clay pigeon. The American looked startled; he raised his right hand weakly and waved.

  I had never felt so strange before. I had killed many Americans in the air, but this was the first time a man had weakened in such a fashion directly before my eyes, and from wounds I had inflicted upon him. I honestly didn’t know whether or not I should try and finish him off. Such thoughts were stupid, of course. Wounded or not, he was an enemy, and he had almost taken three of my own men a few minutes before. However, there was no reason to aim for the pilot again. I wanted the airplane, not the man.

  I dropped back and came in again on his tail. Somehow the American called upon a reserve of strength and the Wildcat jerked upward into a loop. That was it. His nose started up. I aimed carefully at the engine, and barely touched the cannon trigger. A burst of flame and smoke exploded outward from his engine. The Wildcat rolled and the pilot bailed out. Far below me, almost directly over the Guadalcanal coast, his parachute snapped open. The pilot did not grasp his shroud lines, but hung limply in his chute. The last I saw of him he was drifting in toward the beach.

  The other three Zero fighters quickly reformed on my wings. Yonekawa grinned broadly at me as he slid into position. We climbed and headed back for the island in search of other enemy planes. Antiaircraft shells began to burst around us. Their aim was sporadic, but the fact that heavy flak guns were already on shore, only hours after the invasion, was upsetting. I knew that our own forces required at least three days following a beach landing to set up their antiaircraft weapons. The speed at which the Americans moved their equipment ashore was astounding,

  (Long after the day’s flight was over, Commander Nakajima filled me in on what had happened to the other fourteen Zeros. The enemy Navy fighters held a constant advantage over Guadalcanal. They kept diving in groups of six and twelve planes, always from out of the sun, raising havoc with the Zero formations. Never before had Nakajima and his men encountered such determined opposition or faced an enemy who would not yield. Again and again the plunging Wildcats shredded the Zero formation.

  (Every time the Wildcats dove, they fired, rolled back, and disappeared far below, refusing to allow the Zeros to use to their own advantage their unexcelled maneuverability. The tactics were wise, but the Americans’ gunnery was sadly deficient. Only one Zero fighter fell before these attacks.

  (It was Nishizawa’s day to shine. Before his ammunition ran out, the astounding ace in incredible maneuvers which left his wingmen hopelessly far behind him had shot six Grumman fighters out of the sky.

  (For the first time Nakajima encountered what was to become a famous double-team maneuver on the part of the enemy. Two Wildcats jumped the commander’s plane. He had no trouble in getting on the tail of an enemy fighter, but never had a chance to fire before the Grumman’s teammate roared at him from the side. Nakajima was raging when he got back to Rabaul; he had been forced to dive and run for safety. And Nishizawa and I were the only two pilots in the entire group to down any enemy planes during the day’s fighting.)

  Meanwhile I returned to 7,000 feet with my three fighters behind me. We flew through broken clouds, unable to find any hostile planes. No sooner had we emerged from one cloud than, for the first time in all my years of combat, an enemy plane caught me unawares. I felt a heavy thud, the scream of a bullet, and a hole two inches across appeared through the cockpit glass to my left, only inches away from my face.

  I still had not seen any other planes in the air. It might have been ground fire which hit me. Then I caught a glimpse of an enemy bomber—not a fighter!—which had caught me napping. The Dauntless hung on its wing, racing for cloud cover. The audacity of the enemy pilot was amazing; he had deliberately jumped four Zero fighters in a slow and lightly armed dive bomber.

  In a moment I was on his tail. The Dauntless jerked up and down several times, then dove suddenly into a cloud. I wasn’t giving up that easily; I went right in after him. For a few seconds I saw only white as we raced through the billowing mass. Then we were through, in the clear. I closed in rapidly and fired. The rear gunner flung up his hands and collapsed over his gun. I pulled back easily on the stick and the shells walked up to the engine. The SBD rolled repeatedly to the left, then dropped into a wild dive. Yonekawa saw the pilot bail out. It was my sixtieth kill.

  Back at 13,000 feet, we searched for but failed to find the remainder of our group. A few minutes later, over the Guadalcanal coast, I spotted a cluster of planes several miles ahead of our own. I signaled the other fighters and gunned the engine.

  Soon I made out eight planes in all, flying a formation of two flights. Enemy. Our own planes did not form up into flights in their formations. I was well ahead of the other fighters and kept closing in against the enemy group. I would take the planes on the right and leave the others for the three Zeros following. The enemy group tightened formation; perfect! They appeared to be Wildcats, and tightening their formation meant that I had not been sighted.

  If they kept their positions I would be able to hit them without warning, coming up from their rear and below. Just another few seconds...I’d be able to get at least two on the first firing pass. I closed in as close as possible. The distance in the range finder shrank to 200 yards—then 100—70—60...

  I was in a trap! The enemy planes were not fighters, but bombers, the new Avenger torpedo planes, types I had never seen before. From the rear they looked exactly like Wildcats, but now their extra size was visible, as were the top turret with its single gun and the belly turret with another 50 caliber gun.

  No wonder they had tightened their formation! They were waiting for me, and now I was caught with eight guns aiming at me from the right, and an equal number from the left. I was on engine overboost, and it was impossible to slow down quickly.

  There was no turning back now. If I turned or looped, the enemy gunners would have a clear shot at the exposed belly of the Zero. I wouldn’t stand a chance of evading their fire. There was only one thing to do—keep going, and open up with everything I had. I jammed down on the firing button. Almost at the same moment every gun in the Avenger formation opened up. The chattering roar of the guns and the cough of the cannon drowned out all other sound. The enemy planes were only twenty yards in front of me when flames spurted from two bombers. That was all I saw. A violent explosion smashed at my body. I felt as though knives had been thrust savagely into my ears; the world burst into flaming red and I went blind.

  (The three
pilots following me reported to our commander that they saw both Avengers falling from the sky, along with my plane. They stated further that the enemy planes were trailing fire and smoke; these were officially credited to me as my sixty-first and sixty-second air victories. But an official American report of the battle denied any losses of Grumman TBF Avengers operating from the three aircraft carriers southwest of Guadalcanal. Perhaps the two planes made it back to their ships. As my own plane dove, with me unconscious in the cockpit, the three Zeros followed me down. They abandoned their chase when my fighter disappeared into a low overcast.)

  Several seconds must have passed before I regained consciousness. A strong, cold wind blowing in through the shattered windshield brought me to. But I was still not in control of my senses. Everything seemed blurred. I kept lapsing back into waves of darkness. These swept over me every time I tried to sit up straight. My head was far back, leaning against the headrest. I struggled to see, but the cockpit wavered and danced before my eyes. The cockpit seemed to be open; actually, the glass had been shattered, and the wind streamed in to jar me back to semi-consciousness. It struck my face; my goggles were smashed.

  I felt...nothing but a soothing, pleasant drowsiness. I wanted to go to sleep. I tried to realize that I had been hit, that I was dying, but I felt no fear. If dying was like this, without pain, there was nothing to worry about.

  I was in a dream world. A stupor clouded my brain. Visions swam before me. With astonishing clarity I saw my mother’s face. She cried, “Shame! Shame! Wake up, Saburo, wake up! You are acting like a sissy. You are no coward! Wake up!”

  Gradually I became aware of what was happening. The Zero plunged earthward like a stone. I forced my eyes open and looked around to see bright, red, flaming scarlet. I thought the plane was burning. But I could smell no smoke. I was still I blinked several times. What was wrong? Everything was so red! I groped blindly with my hand. The stick. I had it. Still unable to see, I pulled the stick back. Gently. The plane began to recover from its wild plummeting. I felt the pressure push me into the seat as the Zero eased out of the dive and returned to what must have been level flight. The wind pressure abated; no longer did it beat with such force against my face. A wild, panicky thought gripped me. I might be blind!! I’d never have a chance to return to Rabaul.

  I acted instinctively. I tried to reach forward with my left hand to grip the throttle, to gain more power. I strained, but my hand refused to move. Nothing! In desperation I tried to clench my fingers.

  There was no sensation. Just numbness. Then I shifted my feet to the rudder bar. Only my right foot moved, and the Zero skidded as the bar went down. My left foot was numb. I gritted my teeth and strained. There was no feeling, no sensation of any kind.

  My whole left side seemed to be paralyzed. I tried for several minutes to move my left arm or leg. It was impossible. Still I did not feel any pain. I could not understand it. I had been hit. Badly. But I could feel nothing. I would have welcomed pain in my left arm and leg; anything, to let me know my limbs were still intact.

  My cheeks were wet, I was crying; the tears poured out. It helped, oh, how it helped! The stiffness began to go away. The tears were washing some of the blood out of my eyes.

  Still I could not hear anything. But I could see again! Just a little, but the red began to fade. The sunlight streaming into the cockpit enabled me to see the outline of the metal posts.

  The range finder was a blur in front of me. It kept improving, and soon I made out the circles of the instruments. They remained fuzzy; although I could see them, it was impossible to read the dials. I turned my head and looked out the side of the cockpit. Great black shapes slid past the wings with tremendous speed.

  They had to be the enemy ships. That meant I was only about 300 feet over the water. Then sound came to me. First I heard the drone of the engine, then sharp, staccato cracks. The ships were firing at me! The Zero rocked with the blast waves of the bursting flak! Strangely, I did nothing. I sat in the cockpit without even trying to take any evasive action. The sounds of the bursting shells fell away. I could no longer see the black shapes on the water. I had flown out of range. Several minutes passed. Still I did nothing but sit in the cockpit, with difficulty trying to think.

  My thoughts came in fitful snatches. I wanted to go to sleep again. Through my stupor I realized I could never fly all the way back to Rabaul. Not the way I felt. I would never even make Buka, less than 300 miles away. For a few minutes the thought of diving at full speed into the sea attracted me as the solution to my disability.

  I was being stupid. I tried to force myself awake. I cursed at myself: this was no way to die! If I must die, I thought, I should go out like a man. Was I some untried fledgling who j didn’t know how to fight? My thoughts came and went, but I knew that as long as I could control the plane, as long as I could fly, I would do everything in my power to take one or more of the enemy with me.

  I was silly, but I felt I would be cheating some enemy pilot if I crashed into the sea merely because I accepted the inevitable so readily. I knew the great value of aerial victories to a fighter pilot. If it had to be, why not in combat? Why go out alone and unseen, a silent splash and an explosion heard by no one?

  I could no longer even rationalize. Where were the fighters?

  I cursed and yelled for the Wildcats to appear. “Come on!”

  I screamed. “Here I am! Come on and fight!”

  For several minutes I must have raged like a madman in the cockpit. Slowly I came to my senses; little by little I realized the ridiculous futility of my actions. I began to appreciate the incredible luck which had kept me alive so far. I had survived many crises before, but none so serious as this. Bullets had ripped by inches away from my head, and more than once had actually grazed my arms, breaking the skin but causing me no further injury. What was the matter with me?

  I had a chance to live! Why throw it away? And suddenly I wanted to live, I wanted to reach Rabaul.

  The first thing to do, I realized, was to check my wound.

  I still did not know where I had been hit, or how seriously.

  I was regaining confidence in myself, finally thinking and acting sanely. But I still could not move my left hand. I snapped my right hand in the air, flinging away the glove.

  I brought my hand to my head, gingerly, afraid of what I might find. My fingers, moving over the helmet, felt slippery and sticky. I knew it was blood. Then they felt a slit in the helmet on top of my head. The depression was deep, and greasy with blood. I moved my fingers down, probing gently. How deep could it be? Something hard met my fingers. I was afraid to accept the truth. My fingers were deep, well past the helmet. That something “hard” could only be my skull, laid open by bullets. Maybe it was cracked. The thought was sickening. Bullets could have reached the brain, but not penetrated deeply. Something I had once read about combat wounds came back to me. The brain cannot feel pain. But maybe the bullets were the cause of the paralysis on my left side. These thoughts came slowly. How can you sit in the cockpit of a damaged airplane, half blind, half paralyzed, sticking your fingers through a hole in your head, and be objective about the matter? I realized what had happened, I felt the blood and the hole in my head, but I am certain its significance never really penetrated my thoughts. I knew it; that was all.

  I moved my fingers down over my face. It was puffy and swollen. I felt tears in the skin; pieces of metal, perhaps. I was not certain. But there was blood there, too, and I felt several loose patches of skin.

  The Zero droned on, its engine beat steady. My head continued to clear. More and more I acted rationally. I sniffed. No odor of gasoline, so neither the engine nor the fuel tanks had been hit. That was my most cheering realization since the battle. With the undamaged tanks and a reliable engine, the fighter could have plenty of miles left in it. The wind seemed to increase as my mind cleared. It buffeted at my head. I stared ahead, squinting. The front windshield glass was missing. No wonder it felt so strong; it wa
s beating into the cockpit at more than 200 miles an hour. I felt the blood drying on my face. But the top of my head was still wet, and the wind tugged at the deep crease in my skull, which felt as though it were still bleeding. I must plug something into the wound, I knew, or I would soon black out again, this time from loss of blood.

  Sudden pain engulfed me. My right eye! It began to throb as the pain steadily increased. I felt it with my fingers, and jerked them away. The pain was becoming unbearable. I placed my hand over my right eye again; my vision remained the same. I was blind in the eye!

  Every Japanese fighter pilot carried with him four pieces of triangular bandage in the pockets of his flight suit. I pulled one out and tried to moisten it with saliva by biting the end.

  I had absolutely no saliva in my mouth! I was terribly thirsty. My mouth felt dry, like cotton.

  I kept biting and chewing; the end of the bandage slowly became damp. Leaning forward to get away from the steady wind pressure, I wiped my left eye with the moistened bandage. It worked! Little by little my vision cleared, and in less than a minute I could make out clearly the ends of my wings. I sighed with relief.

  Only for seconds. As I sat back I felt a stabbing pain in my head, then another. The pain came and went in waves. For moments I would feel nothing, then a shock as if a blunt-edged hammer had struck me against the skull. I wasted no time in applying the bandage to the head wound, but as soon as I took my hand away the wind snatched the bandage and whipped it away through the shattered glass.

  Despair swept over me. How was I to get a bandage around my head? I had to stop the bleeding! My left hand was useless, and I could use only my right in applying the bandage. But my right hand was necessary to hold the stick and to work the throttle. The shrieking wind in the cockpit further complicated the situation.