Samurai!

by Martin Caiden

  And it was only too obvious to all that we were totally unprepared for the great Superfortresses which had first struck at Kyushu from their China airfields. The light Army fighters which intercepted these planes were woefully ineffective against the fast, heavily armed, armored bombers. If the B-17 had been a formidable opponent, the B-29 was-insuperable.

  Now that the Marianas were in American hands, and rapidly being transformed into great airfields, all Japan expected heavy attacks by the B-29s.

  The defensive concepts adapted by the high command came too late, and were also inadequate. The majority of our fighters were Zeros, well adapted to our offensive tactics earlier in the war, but virtually useless against the B-29s. Most of our bomber pilots still flew the Mitsubishi Betty, now too old, too slow, and possessed of the unhappy trait of exploding violently into flame under enemy fire.

  The loss of Saipan furnished the impetus to discard the cobwebs in our planning. The high command screamed for the new fighters, designed specifically to overcome the Zero’s shortcomings.

  In September I began test-flying two new fighter planes. The Shiden (Lightning in Japanese), known by its code name of George to the enemy, was designed as an interceptor to outfight the Hellcat. It lacked the Zero’s range and was heavier, but it possessed great speed and four 20-mm. cannon. It afforded pilots safety through armor plating and excellent structure. I found it surprisingly maneuverable for its heavy weight; it gained this flexibility partially through an automatic flap system.

  Unfortunately, the Shiden’s flight characteristics were treacherous and demanded an experienced pilot. Too many men with little time behind the controls of fighter planes never lived to fly the Shiden into combat. Their familiarization flights killed them.

  The Raiden (Thunderbolt in Japanese), called Jack by the Americans, was designed specifically to fight heavy bombers like the B-29. For this purpose its performance was excellent, and many of our pilots compared the airplane to Germany’s great Focke-Wulf FW-190 fighter. Four 20-mm. cannon gave the Raiden an excellent punch against a bomber, and its ability to fly at more than 400 miles an hour—extraordinary in those days—overcame the Zero’s trouble in this respect. Even with its cannon and heavy steel armor plate, the Raiden could outclimb the Zero.

  It was well suited to bomber attack but, like the Shiden, demanded high skill from its pilots. The overemphasis on speed and armament made the plane loggy in aerobatics. Compared to the Zero in this respect, it flew like a truck. We suffered appalling losses in training. Later, when the Hellcats and Mustangs roamed over Japan proper, those pilots in Raidens who opposed the enemy fighters discovered all too late the airplane’s inability to maneuver.

  Moreover, the production of these new models proved painfully slow. Despite the orders of the high command, the old Zero remained our fighter mainstay.

  The test pilot assignment afforded me the opportunity once again to visit with my family. I left Yokosuka early one Sunday morning to travel to my uncle’s house, passing through Tokyo on the way.

  During my absence, the city had deteriorated further. Although no bombings had occurred since the Doolittle attack of 1942, the city appeared drab and lifeless. Most of the stores were closed, their windows empty. The significance of this was clear. There were no goods to sell, and the owners were away, working in war plants. The few stores which remained open hardly resembled the colorful and well-stocked establishments I once knew. Few goods were on display, and for the most part these were crude substitutes. The Allied blockade of Japan was pinching the national stomach severely.

  Often I passed official demolition crews tearing down long stretches of buildings and private homes. Hundreds of men ripped and broke up buildings in order to clear wide firebreaks in the heart of the city, in anticipation of the bombings which I all Japan feared. The families being forced from their homes stood in small groups on the street, watching with sorrowful faces as the labor gangs ripped their homes to pieces.

  I had seen bombing before. To me the demolition work was no more than a pitiful attempt, a wasted effort which would do little good against masses of incendiary bombs. Tokyo’s wooden homes and commercial buildings would flare up like matchboxes.

  Most of the men on the streets wore overalls, or the wartime civilian standard suit, patterned after military uniforms. Not once did I see a single woman wearing her “Sunday Best,” the colorful kimonos of pre-war days. Instead, they were attired in black slacks, in the drab and nondescript Monpe, baggy and colorless kimono pants.

  Nearly every street corner had its long queues of women and children, shuffling patiently in line as they waited for rations. The shortage of wholesome food was obvious. Faces were pinched and bleak, eloquent testimony to the ersatz food being forced on the civilians.

  Tokyo was depressingly morbid, and I could not get out of the city quickly enough. Not everything had changed. Corner radios blasted at the ears painfully, trumpeting war songs and chanting phony victories. Posters marred the faces of buildings everywhere in the city, exhorting the people to greater production, to bear with the shortages until Japan won the war.

  I felt ill at ease. Never had I dreamed I would see such abject misery in the faces of my own people.

  I waited for several minutes before the door to my uncle’s home. Someone was playing the piano...it could only be Hatsuyo. I listened for a while, hearing the first music in months.

  The music stopped when I knocked at the door. I heard Hatsuyo running to greet me.

  Her smile was a beam of sunshine. “Saburo! Oh, how wonderful you look!” she exclaimed. For several moments she stared at me. “We all prayed for your return, Saburo,” she said quietly. “We have been most fortunate. Here you are again, well, and an officer.”

  The familiar house was the same. It was still a home to me, more welcoming than any others because of Hatsuyo. “You look beautiful,” I said, “the most beautiful thing I have seen in many long months. But why are you so dressed up? You look radiant,” I marveled. She wore a tasteful kimono dress, every line neat and perfect on her slim body.

  She laughed at me. “Saburo, sometimes you are a fool! Don’t you know that this is a special occasion? I have kept this dress waiting for you, waiting patiently to wear it when I received a newly commissioned officer.”’ She smiled. “Here; see these sleeves? I must apologize for the kimono, my cousin.” The sleeves had been cut to half length.

  “The government has ordered us to cut off the long dancing sleeves,” she cried gaily, whirling about the room with her arms out before her. “Don’t you know,” she whispered in mock seriousness, “that the dancing sleeves are unfit for the emergency!”

  I smiled at her. “Hatsuyo, where is everyone?” I asked. “Isn’t the family at home?”

  She shook her head. “Only I am here to welcome you, Saburo. Father will be out the rest of the day. He has volunteered for home defense work, and is receiving his refresher training in the Army Reservists Corps at a high school nearby. Michio will be working overtime in his factory tonight.”

  Her face clouded. “Mother is out, too, Saburo. She is trying to buy something for you, from...from the black market. She wants so much to have something special to welcome you!”

  I stared at Hatsuyo. If my aunt were caught, she would be in serious trouble with the police. “Why did she do that?” I gasped. “Doesn’t she know what could happen to her?”

  “I know, I know, Saburo. But she wanted so much to make your welcome more pleasant!”

  I shook my head. “Well, let us hope that everything is all right. I should have told her when I called that none of the men ever visit a civilian home today without bringing their own meals.” I showed her my lunchbox, as well as gifts I had purchased from the Yokosuka Post Exchange.

  Hatsuyo was embarrassed. One does not normally bring home toilet necessities as gifts. “Thank you, Saburo,” she blushed. “Times are not normal, and I... thank you.”

  She quickly changed the subject. “Come here
and sit down, Saburo. Now, tell me everything that has happened since we last saw you. What happened at Iwo Jima? We have heard nothing on the radio, except that there has been terrible fighting at Saipan,”

  I stammered clumsily. We were under strict orders not to discuss what had happened at Iwo Jima. The catastrophe suffered by our forces was classified as top secret, and no one outside of the military knew what really had taken place.

  I changed the subject, talking excitedly about the new interceptors I had flown in tests. “If we have enough of these new fighters, we may be able to turn the tide,” I said. “They have marvelous speed, and their four cannon should be enough to destroy any plane flying.” This was not exactly true, I realized. If things kept up at the training fields, with the student pilots crashing daily, we’d have precious few of the new planes to get into the air when the time for combat arrived.

  A half hour went by while we discussed everything but the subject which interested me most. I stole side glances at Hatsuyo, studying her profile, watching the way she talked, the way her eyes shone when she became excited the way she moved her arms, her poise in walking, the way her cheeks wrinkled when she smiled.

  I talked with Hatsuyo, but I spoke without paying any attention to the words. I was in love with her, I wanted to tell her how I felt, I wanted to shout the pent-up words. More than two months ago, when it seemed I was only minutes away from eternity, when Iwo Jima faded over the horizon and I saw a vision of Hatsuyo, I vowed that, if by some miracle I lived, I would tell her my feelings.

  Now...I couldn’t! Nothing had changed. I was still a pilot, even if I had achieved officer’s status. I knew I would fly in combat again, and the burning Zeros I had seen falling before the Hellcats’ guns left a fiery imprint on my mind. I knew the odds were against me, that the very next time I flew into battle I could be one of those men hurtling toward earth, out of control, burning alive.

  Then, suddenly, she interrupted me. “Saburo,” she spoke quietly, “did you know that Fujiko-san has been married?”

  I hadn’t known. “After it was all over,” she continued, “Fujiko-san married a pilot. A flier. Like yourself,” she added defiantly.

  I started to speak, but she went on. “Saburo, why aren’t you married yet? You are no longer a youngster, you know. You are twenty-seven years of age. You have become someone. You are an officer now. You should take a wife.”

  “But, I tell you, Hatsuyo, I don’t know any women I like that much!” I protested.

  “Didn’t you love Fujiko-san?”

  I didn’t know what to say. A clumsy silence settled over us. Hatsuyo walked across the room and turned on the radio, tuning in to the afternoon symphonic hour. The music eased the awkwardness of the moment.

  She returned and sat by me again. “Well,” she smiled, “perhaps, Saburo, we should recommend some young women who would better suit your taste.”

  Hatsuyo was making me uncomfortable. She refused to look away, but stared directly into my eyes. I became flustered and started to speak, but could only stammer.

  I rose quickly and walked to the window, staring out. The beautiful flowers were gone. Vegetables had replaced them, I noticed.

  “There are many women as beautiful as Fujiko-san, Saburo,” Hatsuyo said. She had walked after me and now stood almost directly behind me.

  “Hatsuyo!” I shouted, whirling around, “I don’t want to talk about it again. Please!” My outburst startled her. “We’ve talked this over so many times. The facts don’t change. Nothing has changed. I am a flier, don’t you understand? Every time I go up, there is the chance that I will never return! Every time! Sooner or later it is certain to happen. Sooner or later!”

  I was upset and distressed. Why did she have to talk about marriage again? I hated myself for the way I was talking, I hated myself for not telling her how I felt.

  “There is not a pilot today who does not expect to die, Hatsuyo,” I explained. “Our luck has to run out. Skill has nothing to do with it. It is…”

  “You talk like a child, Saburo.” Her eyes flashed in anger. She spoke so quietly I could hardly hear her. “You prattle on and on, and you know nothing of what you’re saying. You do not know a woman’s heart.”

  She raised her arms in exasperation. “You talk of flying, of dying, Saburo. You talk of nothing else. You do not talk of living!”

  She stalked away, turning off the radio with an angry gesture. She ignored me and sat before the piano, her fingers moving idly over the keys.

  I was speechless. For several minutes I stood rooted in one spot, unable to speak a word. Finally I caught my voice again. “Hatsuyo, I—I don’t know. Maybe, if...Is it my fault, can I help it if we are in a war?” I cried. “Why do you always talk like this?

  “It is enough for me to see you here, in this house,” I went on. “I want—oh, I don’t know,” I stammered. “All I want to know, all I wish is that you will live long and happily.”

  She slammed her hands down on the keys and whirled around. “I don’t want to live long! What is it to live long and— and she placed her hand over her heart, “to be empty in here? None of us, here at home—or even a flier—can live forever. Don’t you understand that, Saburo?”

  Her anger startled me. “A woman is happy,” she spoke in a hush, “only if she lives with the man she loves. Even—even if it’s for a few days and no more.”

  She turned away bitterly, venting her anger on the piano. I stood transfixed, utterly at a loss as to what to say or do.

  CHAPTER 30

  ON OCTOBER 27, ten days after the first American troops stormed ashore on the Philippines, Imperial Headquarters issued this historic communique:

  “The Shikishima Unit of the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps, at 1045 hours on 25 October 1944, succeeded in a surprise attack against the enemy task force, including four aircraft carriers, thirty nautical miles northeast of Suluan, Philippine Islands. Two Special Attack planes plunged together into an enemy carrier, causing great fires and explosions, and probably sinking the warship. A third plane dove into another carrier, setting huge fires. A fourth plane plunged into a cruiser, causing a tremendous explosion which sank the vessel immediately afterward.”

  This was the thunderous beginning of the Kamikazes. The first suicide mission was led by Lieutenant S. G. Yukio Seki, who flew at the head of five Zero fighters, each carrying a 550-pound bomb. Seki was a bomber pilot with less than 300 hours flight time; the other four pilots had logged no more hours in the air. Yet, of the five, only one plane missed its target in the death dive.

  Four Zero fighters provided escort for the five bomb-carrying aircraft. I discovered later that the flight leader of the escort group was my friend Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, by then a Warrant Officer. Nishizawa adroitly avoided interception by more than twenty prowling Hellcats, taking his nine planes through the wild storms to reach the enemy fleet.

  After the dives of the five Kamikaze planes, Nishizawa returned with his flight to his base at Mabalacat on Cebu, and reported the mission as an outstanding success.

  Everywhere in the Navy, pilots talked about the unprecedented attack. And it had been carried out with such brilliant results, by contrast with our disastrous losses at Iwo Jima. As a fighter pilot I was never inclined to approve of suicide missions, but now there was no denying the tremendous blow which had been struck at the American fleet off the Philippines. Even I had to acknowledge the fact that the suicide dives appeared to be our only means of striking back at the American warships from that day on, Kamikaze became a byword of our language, a term which assumed new meaning. We knew every time the Kamikaze planes took off that our men were going to die. Many of them never even reached their objectives, blasted from the sky by the enemy interceptors and the incredible walls of antiaircraft fire thrown up by the ships.

  But there were always those which did get through, which plummeted like avenging spirits from the sky, sometimes with wings tom off, at other times engulfed in flames. One after the other, so
metimes in pairs, often as many as six, ten, and sixteen, they roared off their runways for the last time, then plunged into their objectives.

  The Kamikazes gave us tremendous new strength. Their effectiveness was obvious in the number of enemy warships and transports, once inviolate from our attacks, safe behind their withering firepower, which now resounded with the roar of flaming gasoline, exploding bombs, the shrieks of men. The Kamikazes ripped aircraft carriers from stem to stem, sinking more than all our combined weapons had been able to destroy. They split open cruisers and destroyers, and exacted a terrible toll.

  To the enemy our men seemed to be committing suicide.

  They were throwing their lives away uselessly. Perhaps it will never be fully understood by Americans, or anyone in the Western world, that our men did not consider that they were throwing away their lives. On the contrary, the Kamikaze pilots volunteered en mass for their one-way missions.

  This was not suicide! These men, young and old, were not dying in vain. Every plane which thundered into an enemy warship was a blow struck for our land. Every bomb carried by a Kamikaze into the fuel tanks of a giant carrier meant that many more of the enemy killed, that many more planes which would never bomb and strafe over our soil.

  These men had faith. They believed in Japan, in striking a blow for Japan with their lives. It was a cheap price to pay; one man, perhaps, against the lives of hundreds or even thousands. Our country no longer had the means to base its strength on conventional tactics. We were no longer possessed of such national power. And a man, every one of these men, who surrendered his mortal soul was not dying. He passed on life to those who remained.

  Again, however, it was a case of too little and too late. Not even the stupendous toll reaped by the Kamikazes could halt the terrible power amassed by the Americans. They were too mighty, too many, too advanced. There were too many ships and planes and guns and men.