So this contest boiled down to endurance between the time my arm gave out and I faltered in my evading roll and the fuel capacity of the Hellcats. They still had to fly back to their carriers.
I glanced at the speedometer. Nearly 350 miles an hour. The best that the Zero could do.
I needed endurance for more than my arm. The fighter also had its limits. I feared for the wings. They were bending under the repeated violence of the evading roll maneuvers. There was a chance that the metal might collapse under continued pressure and that the wing would tear off from the Zero, but that was out of my hands. I could only continue to fly. I must force the plane through the evasive rolls or die.
Roll.
Snap the stick over!
Skid.
Here comes another one.
To hell with the wings! Roll!
I could hear nothing. The sound of the Zero’s engine, the roaring thunder of the Hellcats, the heavy staccato of their 50-caliber guns, all had disappeared.
My left eye stung.
The sweat streamed down.
I couldn’t wipe it.
Watch out!
Stick over. Kick the bar.
There go the tracers. Missed again.
The altimeter was down to the bottom; the ocean was directly beneath my plane. Keep the wings up, Sakai, you’ll slap a wave with your wing tip. Where had the dogfight started? Thirteen thousand feet. More than two and a half miles of skidding and rolling away from the tracers, lower and lower. Now I had no altitude left.
But the Hellcats couldn’t make their firing runs as they had before. They couldn’t dive; there was no room to pull out. Now they would try something else. I had a few moments. I held the stick with my left hand, shook the right vigorously. It hurt. Everything hurt. Dull pain, creeping numbness.
Here they come, skidding out of their ring. They’re careful now, afraid of what I might do suddenly. He’s rolling. A rolling pass.
It’s not so hard to get out of the way. Skid to the left. Look.
The tracers.
Fountains geysering up from the water. Spray. Foam.
Here comes another one.
How many times have they come at me this way now? I’ve lost count. When will they give up? They must be running low on fuel!
But I could no longer roll so effectively. My arms were going numb. I was losing my touch. Instead of coming about with a rapid, sharp rolling motion, the Zero arced around in a sloppy oval, stretching out each maneuver. The Hellcats saw it. They pressed home their attacks, more daring now. Their passes came so fast that I had barely time for a breather.
I could no longer keep this up. I must make a break! I came out of another left roll, kicked the rudder bar and swung the stick over to the right. The Zero clawed around in response and I gunned the fighter for a break in the ring. I was out, nosing down again and running for it, right over the water. The Hellcats milled around for a moment in confusion. Then they were after me again.
Half the planes formed a barricade overhead, while the others, in a cluster of spitting guns, hurtled after me. The Hellcats were too fast. In a few seconds they were in firing range. Steadily I kept working to the right, kicking the Zero over so that she jerked hard with each maneuver. To the left fountains of white foam spouted into the air from the tracers which continued narrowly to miss my plane.
They refused to give up. Now the fighters overhead were coming down after me. The Grummans immediately behind snapped out their bursts, and the Hellcats which dove tried to anticipate my moves. I could hardly move my arms or legs. There was no way out. If I continued flying low, it would only be a matter of a minute or two before I moved the stick too slowly. Why wait to die, running like a coward?
I hauled the stick back, my hands almost in my stomach. The Zero screamed back and up, and there, only a hundred yards in front of me, was a Hellcat, its startled pilot trying to find my plane.
The fighters behind him were already turning at me. I didn’t care how many there were. I wanted this fighter. The Hellcat jerked wildly to escape. Now! I squeezed, the tracers snapped out. My arms were too far gone. The Zero staggered; I couldn’t keep my arms steady. The Hellcat rolled steeply, went into a climb and fled.
The loop had helped. The other fighters milled around in confusion. I climbed and ran for it again. The Grummans were right behind me. The fools in those planes were firing from a distance of 500 yards. Waste your ammunition, waste it, waste it, I cried. But they were so fast! The tracers flashed by my wing and I rolled desperately.
Down below, Iwo suddenly appeared. I rocked my wings, hoping the gunners on the ground would see the red markings. It was a mistake. The maneuver slowed me down, and the Hellcats were all over me again.
Where was the flak? What’s wrong with them down on the island? Open up, you fools, open up!
Iwo erupted in flame. Brilliant flashes swept across the island. They were firing all the guns, it seemed, spitting tracers into the air. Explosions rocked the Zero. Angry bursts of smoke appeared in the air among the Hellcats. They turned steeply and dove out of range.
I kept going at full speed. I was terrified. I kept looking behind me, fearing that they had come back, afraid that at any second the tracers wouldn’t miss, that they’d stream into the cockpit, tearing away the metal, ripping into me.
I passed Iwo, banging my fist on the throttle, urging the plane to fly faster. Faster, faster! South Iwo appeared on the horizon...there, a cloud! A giant cumulus, rearing high above the water. I didn’t care about the air currents. I wanted only to escape those fighters. At full speed I plunged into the billowy mass.
A tremendous fist seemed to seize the Zero and fling it wildly through the air. I saw nothing but livid bursts of lightning, then blackness. I had no control. The Zero plunged and reared. It was upside down, then standing on its wings then hurtling upward tail first.
Then I was through. The storm within the cloud spit the fighter out with a violent lurch. I was upside down. I regained control at less than 1,600 feet. Far to the south I caught a glimpse of the fifteen Hellcats, going home to their carrier. It was hard to believe that it was all over and that I was still alive. I wanted desperately to get out of the air. I wanted solid ground beneath my feet.
I set down at Iwo’s main strip. For a few minutes I relaxed in the cockpit, exhausted, then climbed wearily down from the Zero. All the other fighters had long since landed. A throng of pilots and mechanics ran toward the plane when it stopped, shouting and cheering. Nakajima was among them, and he threw his arms around my neck, roaring with joy. “You did it, Sakai! You did it! Fifteen against one...you were marvelous!” I could only lean against the plane and mumble, cursing my blind eye. It had nearly cost me my life.
An officer pounded me on the back. “We were going crazy down here,” he shouted. “Every man on the island was watching you! The gunners, they couldn’t wait for you to come over the island, to bring those planes into their range. Everybody had his hands on the triggers, just waiting, hoping you’d come our way. How did you do it?” he asked in amazement.
A mechanic ran up to me, saluting, “Sir! Your plane. It— it doesn’t...I can’t believe it...there’s not a single bullet hole in your fighter!”
I couldn’t believe it, either. I checked the Zero over from one end to the other. He was right. Not a single bullet had hit the fighter.
Later, back at the billet, I learned that the first group of Zeros which had flown above the clouds had fought a far easier battle than our own formation. The large Hellcat formation had climbed from the overcast directly beneath their own planes, and they had the advantage of diving, surprising the American pilots before they even knew what happened. NAP 1/C Kinsuke Muto, the Yokosuka Wing’s star pilot, had a field day, shooting down four of the Grummans. The other pilots confirmed his victories. Muto flamed two Hellcats before they could even make an evasive move.
But the day’s toll was staggering. Nearly forty—almost half of all our fighters—had be
en shot down.
CHAPTER 27
THE DAY following the savage air battle which cut our numbers in half, I came down with a severe case of diarrhea, which might have been expected, inasmuch as Iwo’s entire water supply came from rainwater collected in tanks, cans, and other containers.
My mental condition was no better than my lessened physical ability. The loss of forty planes and pilots in a single action staggered me. Equally disturbing was the sight of our inexperienced pilots falling in flames, one after the other, as the Hellcats blasted their outmoded Zeros from the sky. How much like Lae the battle had been! Except that now the obsolescent planes were Zeros, and the inexperienced pilots were Japanese. The war had run full circle.
The diarrhea sapped my strength and kept me bedridden for a week. My recovery was slow.
The evening of July 2 excitement spread through the billet. Orderlies dashed back and forth outside, rushing from the radio shack to the Command Post. I went out and stopped one man, who told me that our radio monitors were receiving a sudden increase in enemy message transmissions. Although the majority of such messages were in code, which we could not decipher, the transmissions came from enemy units not too far from the island.
An attack was under way. That much was clear, as well as the fact that it would come very soon. All pilots reported to the Command Post for orders. I was refused permission to fly; the commander felt I was still too weak properly to handle my fighter.
The next morning all pilots reported to the airfield at four o’clock. Several scout planes took off immediately to search the ocean. Nothing happened during the next hour. I returned to the billet to catch some more sleep. At six o’clock bugles shattered the island’s quiet, announcing that an attack was under way. Men ran across the fields to handle their guns, and the forty fighters sped down the runways to take up their interception positions, I walked out to the yard in front of the barracks to watch the action.
Far to the south at least fifty planes appeared, headed directly for us. Hellcats. The forty Zeros circling overhead turned to meet the enemy fighters in a head-on attack.
I had only one or two minutes to watch the fierce air fight. A new sound came to my ears...planes diving! I turned and saw a squadron of Avengers in four separate flights hurtling down against the main strip. Their attack was timed perfectly; our forty fighters had been drawn into battle by the Hellcats, leaving the island wide open for the bombers’ run.
I was still running for the billet when thundering explosions shook the ground beneath my feet. That was enough for me! I dove for the ground, burying my face in the volcanic ash. I tried to grovel my way into the dirt, to get away from the steel splinters which hurtled through the air. The explosions continued unabated for several minutes. Every time a bomb went off the ground beneath me heaved. Dust was everywhere. Then the noise ended.
I rolled over on my back. The Avengers were moving off to the south.
I stood up and looked at the columns of smoke and dust towering over the airfield. Another attack! A second Avenger squadron sliced through the billowing smoke clouds, plunging directly toward our runway. The bombers appeared to be headed directly at me. I turned and ran as fast as I could, throwing myself on the ground behind a large rainwater tank behind the billet.
Almost at the same moment I saw the bombs fall from the Avengers. I stared at them in hypnotized fascination...they grew in size, swelling rapidly, as they plunged through the air. I ate some more dirt.
A blast of hot air punched the ground and flung me over. Shattering explosions hammered at my ears. I opened my eyes; there was only dust and smoke boiling up from the ground. I was more shaken up and frightened than hurt. I had suffered no injury, except the bruises from diving for the protection of the soil. Gradually my ears recovered. I heard the billet collapsing, and dashed out of the way as the water tank fell apart with a roar.
The air battle was still going on. I watched the planes, listened to the racing engines and the coughing sounds of cannon from the Zeros, the staccato bark of the Hellcat guns. What was I doing on the ground? To hell with the diarrhea! I ran out of the shelter toward the Command Post.
The sight of a third wave of bombers screaming down on the field stopped me in my tracks, and I turned and fled again for shelter. This time their aim was poor; the bombs hurtled beyond the airstrip and dug craters just beyond its end. This time I made it to the Command Post, a flimsy tent, still undamaged by the bombs.
I told a grim-faced Nakajima that I wanted to fly. “All the operational planes are off the ground, Sakai,” he answered unhappily. “Besides, I thought the doctor said you weren’t fit to fly?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me, sir,” I snapped back. “And there is a fighter available.” I pointed out a Zero standing at the end of the runway.
“That ship had a bad engine when it was checked before,” the commander replied. “But it may be all right now. The mechanics have been working on it for several hours.” He looked up. “All right, go ahead.”
I threw a salute and ran out of the tent. “Sakai!” I turned; it was Nakajima. “Take care of yourself, Sakai,” he called. “This is no longer Lae...take care.”
Several men were dragging the Zero off the runway, trying to get the airplane to a revetment before the next bombing. I shouted for them to swing the fighter around again. While I was in the cockpit a mechanic clambered up onto the wing. “The engine’s been irregular, sir!” he shouted over the din as I started her up. “It should be all right now!”
The engine caught perfectly. I wasted no time in warming the fighter up, but gunned her for take-off. The wheels had just lifted when I saw the fourth Avenger squadron plummeting down for its attack. I was in no position to oppose the bombers when I was barely off the ground. I dropped the nose and skimmed over the water to gain speed, pulling up twenty miles away.
The bombers had completed their runs, and now a fifth wave of planes hurtled through the smoke and dust to lay their eggs. Not a single fighter opposed them. Every Zero in the air except for my own was battling for its life against the Hellcats.
I returned to Iwo at 13,000 feet, heading for the scrambling dogfight. The battle was over. Now that the Avengers’ bombs were expended, the Hellcats broke off with the Zeros and turned away to escort the bombers back to the carriers. There was nothing I could do; I returned with the remaining Zeros to the Iwo strip.
Again the Hellcats had slashed our ranks badly. Again half of all the fighters which took off to intercept the American planes were lost: twenty out of forty Zeros! In two battles the American fighters shot down sixty out of eighty Zero fighters. It was incredible.
NAP 1/C Aluto and Ensign Alatsuo Hagire were the lights in an otherwise dark morning. Each destroyed three Hellcats, and a number of other pilots put in claims for one fighter shot down. But these victories were incidental. Our planes had done nothing against the Avengers.
The two airstrips were in a shambles. It seemed impossible to land, but somehow all the pilots snaked their way around the craters which pitted both runways.
The enemy would continue to come. And what could we do? Even if every pilot in the air shot down several of the enemy’s fighters, we were powerless to stop the bombers from working over our airfields and other defenses. All through the afternoon and well into the night our staff officers tried to find a way out of our dilemma. There was no rest that evening. Ground crews worked until dawn to clear the runways and fill the craters.
The pilots heard nothing of what had occurred in the staff conference. We went to bed early—in the few shacks and tents which remained standing—anticipating another morning attack.
The Americans did not disappoint us. Again every Zero fighter on the island raced into the air. The results were even worse than we had anticipated. Nine Zeros, most of them badly shot up, came back to land at Iwo. In three battles, we had now lost seventy-one out of eighty fighters!
Again we did nothing to foil the bombers. Moreover, their aim
had improved. Iwo was in incredible chaos, most of its installations wrecked, the field again pitted with bomb craters. Exactly eight bombers were left on the ground—eight torpedo planes which had been protected by their shelters. Almost every other bomber and fighter under repair or hidden in its shelters was destroyed.
After landing we trudged back to the Command Post. Not a man had the energy or the spirit to talk. We sprawled on the ground, weary and despondent, watching the men running frantically over the runways, trying to fill in the holes, fighting the flames which roared fiercely in the wrecked buildings.
Several minutes later Commander Nakajima walked slowly from the Command Post tent and approached our group. We rose to attention. Nakajima waved his hand, telling us to be seated. The commander was visibly agitated, and he talked in a low, faltering tone. He told us that the staff officers had argued all through the night, that they disagreed as to what action against the Americans we should take in the future. One group insisted that we had no choice, that continuing to throw interceptors at the enemy raiders was useless. In a few days we would find ourselves without any planes at all. Therefore, the only thing to do was to strike back with all the strength we could muster at the American task force, which one of our scouts had located 450 miles south-southeast of the island.
The second group agreed, in theory, to the attack plan. “But” they argued, “what can only nine Japanese fighters and eight single-engine bombers do against the enemy task force? The Americans can launch from all their carriers at one time several hundred interceptors!” The American fleet was the same force which, on June 20, had virtually wiped out all our carrier-borne planes in the Marianas.
The argument, Nakajima, said, was ended conclusively when the Iwo Wing commander, Captain Kanzo Miura, finally accepted the plan to hit back at the American fleet. Miura set our departure for noon on July 4—the enemy’s Independence Day.
Samurai! Page 26