Samurai!

by Martin Caiden

  The ocean flowed beneath me. The minutes passed quickly until we saw, far off to the right, a column of smoke, flayed by the wind, drifting slowly over the water. This was the first landmark, Pagan Island, jutting 300 feet from the water, a barren, hideous mass of volcanic rock, steaming and glowing with the heat of its fires far below the surface. It resembled the pictures of Hell I had seen in my Buddhist books when I was a child. It was ironic. The last piece of land I was to see in my life was bubbling, boiling, flaming, and hideous.

  Forty minutes later black clouds appeared on the horizon before us. They towered many thousands of feet above the surface, lashed the sea below with high winds and torrential rains. I looked at the map. The enemy task force, as pin-pointed by our scouts, should be lying somewhere beneath those fierce squalls.

  Now that we were so close, I thought of nothing but the warships cruising along beneath the storm. Everything except the ships and the dive I was to make was blotted from my mind. The old excitement was there, too. It was the same all over again! I thought only of combat, the ships, my plane, the dive, and the interceptors which might appear.

  We were within the routine scouting radius of the enemy fighters. They might spot our formations at any moment. And the warships’ radar were certain to have caught us in their scopes.

  The eight bombers nosed down, our fighters close behind. At 16,000 feet we dropped into a thin cloud deck, were engulfed for several seconds in blinding white, then broke through and continued to descend.

  At 13,000 feet something bright flashed in the sky. There...far ahead and several thousand feet above us. The brilliant flash was repeated. It could only be sunlight glancing off a plane’s wing.

  I saw the first fighter. A Hellcat, its broad body and wings unmistakable, dropping through the clouds. Another. More. How many were there? Look at them! Dropping through the clouds, one after the other, a seemingly endless column of the dangerous fighters. I fired a burst from my guns to warn the other pilots. The squadron leader and Muto banked their wings in response. The American radar had pin-pointed our position perfectly. The column of fighters descended from the clouds less than a mile ahead of us, and only half a mile above.

  I counted the enemy planes as they ripped through the fluffy overcast. I lost count at seventeen. They saw us! The seventeenth fighter—the last one I had time to count—rolled abruptly to the left and dove. Immediately the other fighters swung around and screamed down at us.

  Miura’s words boomed at me. “...refuse to accept battle...keep your planes together...”

  Fine words. But how? Look at those fighters come! Hellcats were everywhere, many of them pulling out of their dives to attack from beneath our planes, even still more of them continuing to burst through the clouds to take us from above. A second column of more than twenty fighters pounced wildly on Muto’s trio of fighters. Still another column, more than thirty planes, it seemed, came out of their dives, climbing rapidly, gunning for the bombers from beneath.

  I held my breath as the Hellcats clawed into the bombers. In two blinding explosions the first and second bombers disappeared, blown into tiny pieces of wreckage as their torpedoes went off with shattering roars which shook my plane.

  Now the Hellcats were within firing range of Muto’s trio. The three Zeros sliced up into a wicked loop, evading the Hellcats. They did not attempt to return the fire, as they could have done. I pounded my fist helplessly against the glass. Muto had a dead shot! He could have rolled to the right and gunned two fighters from the air without even trying.

  Another Hellcat column raced in against my formation. I hauled back on the stick, going up and around in a tight loop, my two wingmen sticking to me. The column was too long. We came out of the loop to find several fighters plunging in, their wings ablaze with their firing machine guns.

  I rolled. Fast. More fighters. Another loop.

  Twice.

  Roll to the left!

  Snap out of it. Here they come; how many are there?

  Take her up and around.

  …refuse to accept combat...

  You can follow orders just so far. I could not follow mine. Not now. Not with the sky filled with Hellcats I could evade just so long and that would be all.

  I snapped around in a tight turn at a diving Hellcat. He flew right into my shells. The fighter flipped wildly through the air and then dropped for the ocean, trailing a fast-growing plume of smoke.

  I had no time to watch him go down. I kicked the rudder bar and yanked the stick over hard. Just in time. A Hellcat skidded crazily past the Zero. And still they came in, one after the other.

  I didn’t even have time to jettison the belly tank. Then the last of the column was past, dropping toward the ocean, beginning their long pull-outs to come back again. I jerked the toggle and the tank dropped free. I turned back. My wingmen were still with me. Good! They had followed my instructions to the letter, concentrating entirely on my plane, matching me turn for turn.

  I was soaking wet. I tried to wipe the sweat away from my face. No time. All sixteen fighters of the column which had jumped my planes were out of their dives, skidding around in long climbing turns, coming back at us.

  Again an eternity of diving, looping, skidding, rolling. Stick over, back, forward, right left. Kick the rudder bar. Skid her around. Bright, flashing tracers. They missed, and continued to miss. The American pilots had poor aim.

  I glanced at the bombers. It was a slaughter: Slow, sluggish with their torpedoes, they wallowed helplessly in the air, unprotected by the Zeros which fought frantically to fend off the Hellcats.

  A ball of fire disappeared in a searing burst of light. Another torpedo had exploded.

  In less than a minute seven bombers were gone. Not even the fuselage or a whole wing of one plane remained. Seven bombers had disappeared in as many explosions.

  The Zeros fared hardly any better. I saw two of our fighters engulfed in flame, swooping and rolling crazily. The pilots didn’t even try to get out. They stayed with their fighters, burning to death.

  I failed to see a single Hellcat in trouble. Except for the one fighter I had shot up, there were just as many of the Grummans in the air. We had little or no chance of evading combat by attempting to outmaneuver a horde of fighters which, it seemed, could match us turn for turn. The Hellcats were fully as agile as our own planes, much faster, and able to out-climb and outdive us. Only the inexperience of their pilots saved us. Had they been better, every Zero would have been shot down in less than a minute. As it was, mine was the only Japanese formation to be seen anywhere in the sky. The Hellcats which had wiped out the other planes now joined the original sixteen fighters which had worked us over.

  Flashing blue wings and white stars. Wings blazing with firing guns. Above us. Below us. To the right and to the left. Hellcats everywhere.

  They reminded me of Lae, when twelve of us tried to shoot up a single bomber. We shredded our own formations in our eagerness to get at the enemy. Now the Hellcats were doing the same. Their organization was gone. They skidded wildly, frantically evading their own fire, trying to get out of the way of other pilots hungry for blood. I watched a fighter come at us, guns blazing, then forced to roll away as another Grumman sliced in from the side, paying no attention to the air space around him.

  Their eagerness saved our lives. We flew in the middle of a tremendous Hellcat formation. The enemy fighters spent more time trying to avoid collisions than firing at us. But I saw no way of breaking off the fight. We were 400 miles from Iwo Jima, and still fifty miles or so from the American carriers which we had not yet seen and might not be able to find. Even if we did, how were we to break through more than sixty Hellcats, each of which was so much faster than the Zero?

  Fate gave us a slim chance. The running air fight drifted toward a cumulus cloud hovering over the water.

  A Hellcat flashed by, leaving an opening in the ranks of the circling fighters. I rolled over and shoved the stick forward, diving with full power into the
protecting invisibility of the cloud. I glanced back. My two wingmen were still with me. For several minutes the world went mad. I saw nothing as the raging winds within the cloud flipped the Zero crazily. Then it was over. I was out, the fighter again in control. I turned to see two Zeros, far below my own plane, spinning wildly as they hurtled free. In a few seconds they were out of their spins and climbing to rejoin me.

  The sky was clear of Hellcats. We had flung them off.

  The irony of our survival! We had escaped almost insuperable odds, only to save ourselves to die. We reformed into a V and turned to the south again. We were relieved at our escape, but the immediate future justified no elation.

  The clouds thickened as we drew nearer to the enemy fleet. They became thicker and thicker, and the airspace between the cloud bottoms and the ocean surface dwindled to a mere 700 feet.

  Blinding sheets of rain fell with such force that at times the Zero heeled over dangerously on one wing, buffeted by the weight of the water pouring down like an avalanche. We had to keep going. The clouds dropped lower and lower toward the ocean. We were in a long, gradual descent, maintaining altitude directly beneath the storm base. Then we were only sixty feet above the surface, whipped into foaming whitecaps.

  If anything, the storm increased its fury. The wind shrieked louder than the roar of the engine. The Zero buffeted and shook from the terrible force of the rain slamming against the wings and fuselage. For long moments the torrents blinded me, covering the windscreen with an impenetrable flood.

  We could go no lower. We were blind now. I saw only sheets of rain all around me, forcing us toward the ocean surface; the water became indistinguishable from the rain. Another foot lower, and for all I knew, we would smash into the sea. Thirty minutes went by. The storm raged unabated. Still we saw nothing but rain and, at brief moments, the storm-lasted ocean surface. According to my map, I was supposed to be directly over the enemy task force. We had failed even to catch a glimpse of the vast fleet.

  The sky grew darker. It was past 7:00 P.M. I was worried. Even if we succeeded in fighting through the rain, the fast-approaching darkness would hide the fleet from our sight. There was no moon at this time of the month.

  I had to make a decision quickly. If we kept forging ahead, groping indefinitely in the darkness, the ocean surface blinded to us, our fuel would give out and we would crash without any hope of survival. A death without meaning, without purpose....

  I glanced back at the two fighters hugging my tail. What about those two men? They were following me without question, ready to accept whatever I chose. If I winged over and dove full speed into the water, they would be no more than a fraction of a second behind my plane when it crashed. Their fate lay in my hands, and the thought upset me.

  What use to go on? To plunge into the ocean, to let the men back at Iwo think that either we had reached the enemy ships, or had been blown out of the air trying? Was that the course of honor?

  No! I checked the compass and swung around in a wide turn, the two other Zeros close behind. I was not even sure of my location at the moment; we had fought wildly, fled into the cloud, and then wandered blindly through the storm. I might be anywhere over the water...even a 180-degree turn could send me due south, instead of back toward Iwo Jima. But I must turn, I must try!

  Captain Miura’s grim words came back to me “...you must dive against the enemy carriers together!”

  I almost turned back again to search for the ships. I was still an officer in the Imperial Navy, where orders were absolute. For any man to question those orders, just or unreasonable, was unheard of. Even if we made home, how could I again face the same wing commander who had sent me out on this mission?

  It was a tremendous struggle, I was beside myself with indecision and anguish. I know now, years later, that I acted in the only sensible way. But even today I cannot describe in words the emotional struggle required to overcome the years of strict and brutal discipline, the lifelong adherence to orders. In those terrible moments in the Zero’s cockpit, I fought successfully to break the chain of discipline and tradition.

  Even if the three of us found the enemy ships, even if we penetrated the fighters, even if our dives were perfect, what could we accomplish with our three small, light fighter planes, without bombs, carrying only some cannon shells and machine-gun ammunition which would explode briefly and then be gone? These two young pilots behind me, trusting their lives to me, had shown outstanding skill in following me doggedly through the violent evasive maneuvers to escape the Hellcats. They had flown unflinchingly into the heart of a thunder-head, no mean feat in itself. They deserved a better fate than to sink in the wreckage of their planes beneath the ocean; they belonged in Japan, they deserved the opportunity to fly and fight again.

  So my decision was made. But a long and dangerous flight lay ahead of us, filled with more dangers than I cared to face. There was the matter of orientation. Our engines were anything but in good operating shape. NAP 2/C Hajime Shiga’s plane, especially, was in dangerous condition. The violent thermals within the thunderhead had tom the engine cowling clear off his plane. I waved for him to draw abreast of my own fighter, and he signaled by hand that his engine was faulty and might quit at any moment.

  What could I tell him? I waved back for him to stay close to me. NAP 2/C Yji Shirai’s plane was in better shape, and after Shiga’s plane had taken its new position, he drew up on the other side.

  A few minutes later I checked my course with the setting sun, now showing brilliantly through the broken clouds. We were past the squall; each passing minute took us into clearer and calmer air.

  The minutes dragged on slowly. Again I was in the position dreaded by all fliers: over the ocean with darkness setting in, with no way to check with any accuracy my location, with fuel running low, and a destination which would be shrouded in darkness as a protection from marauding enemy bombers.

  I marveled at the fighter’s engine, which continued to beat with amazing regularity. One generator had burned out; the motor’s continued operation was astounding.

  I took no precaution to conserve fuel, as I had two years before when I limped home from Guadalcanal to Rabaul. I did not see how the overtaxed engine could function under such stringent conditions. By now I cared little if it failed. I was trying: that was enough. If the plane actually lost its power I would be spared the moment I dreaded more and more with every passing second. I would lose honor when I returned to Iwo Jima. That I appreciated only too well. The prospect of standing before Captain Miura terrified me.

  Two hours after I had turned back for Iwo, the ocean was lost in total darkness. I saw absolutely nothing below me, only the stars which gleamed brightly in the sky. Nearly another hour went by. This was it. The fateful moment. If I had set the fighter on its correct course, Iwo should be below me now.

  If not...at least I would never feel the freezing embrace of the ocean when the Zero struck.

  Several more minutes passed. I stared at the horizon, hoping to see something, a blur, a black shape lifting its outline against the stars. Something was there. Something big, black, irregular, rising steeply at one end. Iwo! We were back!

  I nosed down, followed by Shiga and Shirai. Iwo lay shrouded in gloom, blacked out, as we circled overhead. Out of the darkness there appeared four weak lights. They were like blinding, wonderful beacons to me. Lantern lights, along the runway of the main strip. They flickered briefly in the signal to land. The men on the island had recognized the sound of our engines. A feeling of relief washed over me and I almost went limp with the sudden cessation of the strain which had been building up for almost three hours during the return flight.

  Four lights barely showed the runway. Normally we used twenty, but the others had been destroyed by bombs. Four lights or forty, what did I care! After what we had been through, I felt I could have landed in darkness. Then I was down, taxiing off the runway as the two fighters landed behind me. The lights went out.

  A crowd of pil
ots and mechanics ran toward our planes. For a moment I stared at them as they approached. I hardly felt able to face them. I dropped to the ground and walked to the Command Post. No one tried to stop me as I walked through the crowd, looking neither to the left nor to the right. Every man understood my feelings, and they stepped aside as I walked across the field, my two wingmen following.

  In the darkness I stumbled against a body. I stepped back suddenly. There was no movement, no sound. “Who’s that?”

  I shouted. No reply. I approached the man who cowered on the ground. I could barely make out the pilot’s uniform. I bent down to look at his face.

  “Muto!”

  The flier sat in dejection, his head resting on his arms. “Muto, were you wounded?”

  The unhappy man lifted his head and looked at me. “No,” he said slowly, “I wasn’t wounded.”

  He rose to his feet and stared in wonder at Shiga and Shirai, who waited behind me. “You…you brought back your wingmen, too!” he gasped.

  He stared at the ground, moaning. “Sakai...Sakai...spit on me, my friend. Spit on me.”

  Tears streamed down his face. “I was forced back,” he cried in anguish. “Alone!”

  On the ground before Muto were the gifts of the other pilots who had welcomed him when his lone fighter appeared over the ocean and landed on the island. Again the modest gifts—all the other men had in the world—testified to their attempts to cheer up the dejected pilot.

  I grasped his shoulder. “I know how you feel, Muto. But nothing can be done now. It is too late. All that is over with. It is in the past.”

  I shook him slightly. “Muto.” I pointed to the Command Post. “We—we will go in together.”

  He nodded. We could not look at each other. And then something snapped inside me. Suddenly cold anger at everything which had passed this terrible day gripped me. I thought of Muto, brilliant in the air, already an ace, willing to fight at anytime, anywhere...I thought of him weeping abjectly, sorrowful, fearing that he had shown himself a coward when he had been sent out on a fool’s mission.