by Peter Albano
The ME curled up and circled for another pass. A Zero. A beautiful Zero with a red cowl and green hood circling above but not engaging the 109. Why? Why? Matsuhara, you coward. The trees and the ME arrived at the same time, bullets and branches cracking about him as he crashed to the ground, head striking something hard — so hard consciousness was swallowed by blackness.
Chapter Two
The meeting was tumultuous. Called the day after the attack and after the wounded carrier had been warped into dock B-2 at the repair facility at Yokosuka, the staff assembled in Flag Plot to confront a glowering Admiral Fujita. As usual, as junior officer, Lieutenant J.G. Brent Ross took his seat at the far end of the polished oak table. Located between the flag bridge and the admiral’s quarters and furnished with a long table, a dozen chairs, bulkhead mounted charts, whining blowers, speaker, communications equipment bolted to a corner table manned by a rating, the long room boasted a large equestrian picture of a youthful Emperor Hirohito fixed to the bulkhead behind Fujita. Below the Emperor’s picture hung a large cherry and paulownia wood shrine with a typical roof of tiny rafters protruding in the shape of a Saint Andrews Cross (chigi) containing a round gold sun radiating ruby rays which symbolized the sun goddess Amaterasu (“Who shines in the sky,) an exquisite gold Heian (peace and tranquility) Buddha said to have been personally crafted by the martyr Dengyo Daishi, a tiny liturgical bell from Nara’s Todaiji Temple, a composite figure of gold and precious stones representing Kwannon, Jizo and Amida — an icon, combining in one person, the past, present and the future — a jade horse symbolizing success, an ebony tiger with inlaid gold stripes characterizing ferocity and tenacity in the defense of one’s territory, and numerous silver and gold plaques dedicated to the feats of great warriors of the past.
Moving his eyes the length of the table, Lieutenant J.G. Brent Ross found several old faces missing in the eclectic racial collection before him. The old scribe, eighty-five-year-old Lieutenant Commander Kenji Hironaka had found his nirvana, destroyed in the South China Sea when a one-thousand-pound bomb-splinter the size of a water heater severed his torso neatly just below the chest. Bomber Leader, Commander Kenzo Yamabushi and Torpedo Bomber Leader, Commander Goka Gakki, both lost with most of their crews in the bloody battles with Khadafy’s carriers and cruisers in the Malacca Straits and South China Sea. Executive Officer, Captain Masao Kawamoto, whose body was never found after he led a fire party into the inferno burning in the hangar deck after a thousand-pound bomb with a tungsten and uranium AP tip sliced through the armored flight deck like a knife through butter. Fighter Leader, Lieutenant Taku Ishikawa with a burned leg and bruises from a hard landing in a pine tree was still in the sick bay.
But, thankfully, there were many familiar faces. To his left was seated Air Group Commander, Commander Yoshi Matsuhara. A “plank owner” and a poet, Matsuhara was an original member of Yonaga’s crew, on board when she was commissioned in 1941 and enduring forty-two years of isolation in Sano Wan when the carrier was trapped on the Chukchi Peninsula from 1941 to 1983. Brent knew Yoshi had to be over sixty years of age, yet, as most original members of the crew, he seemed to have defied time, appearing quite youthful, with a strong muscular physique, unlined skin, a full shock of black hair and alert eyes. Blessed with amazing reflexes, he was the best fighter pilot on board and, possibly, the finest in the world. His record of seventeen kills stretched all the way back to China where he served with Lieutenant Taku Ishikawa and included two Russians Ilyushin 16s, an American P-40, and in the recent fighting against the Arabs, six bombers and eight fighters. Brent would never forget his shock upon discovering Yoshi was an American.
Commander Yoshi Matsuhara was Brent Ross’s closest friend. But not from the beginning: indeed, at their first meeting, Matsuhara regarded the young American lieutenant as a natural enemy — a member of the forces that had destroyed his sacred Nippon, incinerated his wife and two sons in the great fire raid on Tokyo in 1945. Yet, fighting side by side, finding death raining all about and claiming friends with the bizarre randomness of war, the two men grew closer and closer. Finally, a warm bond broke through the ice of hostility, binding them in a relationship that could only be forged by the brotherhood of war. Locked together on interminable voyages to the far corners of the earth, the friends talked incessantly. In time, as all lonely men at war discover, there were no secrets. In fact, starved for conversation by forty-two years of isolation, Yoshi poured his innermost thoughts, fantasies and ambitions into the ears of the young American whom he came to regard as the “Yankee samurai.” Every detail of his youth, parents, family, and battles were familiar ground for the American lieutenant.
Born in Los Angeles, Yoshi was the only child of Toshio and Kyoko Matsuhara who had immigrated from Japan just prior to the passage of the despised Immigration Acts of 1924. Japan never let go. In fact, the Matsuharas were considered doho — literally “compatriot,” citizens of Japan until death, while young Yoshi was labeled nisei and shared his parents’ dual citizenship and fierce loyalty to Nippon. While Toshiosan cut American lawns and hauled trash, Yoshi attended Fremont High School, entering U.C.L.A. in 1936. True to traditions, each night Yoshi and Toshio-san sat on their zabutons at the low table in the living room under the huge picture of Emperor Hirohito and studied the Hagakure.
In 1938, with war raging in China, imminent in Europe and with the racial taunts of his classmates — “yellow-assed Jap,” “slant,” “flat face” still ringing in his ears — Yoshi returned to Japan and enlisted in the Naval Air Arm. Immediately, he was sent to Tsuchuira and on the first day he discovered racial bigotry was not confined to Americans. With a strong “Yankee” accent, he was instantly singled out by his classmates for a barrage of taunts: “Barbarian”, “Unwashed Pig”, “Yellow Tom Mix.”
The worst was a young fisherman built of stones and boulders named Taku Ishikawa. Relentless in his attacks, the two cadets clashed often. In fact, once goaded beyond patience, Yoshi lashed out with his fists American style. Immediately, he caught a foot in the solar plexus that crushed the breath from his lungs. Then a chop to the chest staggered him. Before he could recover, they were separated by a petty officer who knocked them both down.
“Save your bravery for the Americans, Dutch, Chinese, Russians, and the English. We are rich with enemies and there will be plenty of glory to go around for everyone. You will all be heroes. You will all be dead, of course, but you will all be heroes,” he said, marching them to the squadron commander’s office.
Graduating in 1940, Yoshi, and the detested Ishikawa who was deservedly of inferior rank as a Naval Air Pilot, Third Class, were both assigned to the Second Fighter Squadron based at Tiangang, China. Equipped with the new Mitsubishi A6M2 Rei Sentoki Zero fighter, they fought Chinese, Russians and the loathed American mercenaries of the Flying Tigers for almost a year. Yoshi destroyed two Ilyushin 16s and one American Curtis P-40. Grudgingly, Yoshi admitted to himself Taku Ishikawa was a talented pilot as the stoic fisherman chalked up three kills of his own. Overall, the fighting was so lopsided, the Second scored 99 kills while losing only two Zero-sens — both to anti-aircraft fire.
In 1941, Ensign Yoshi Matsuhara was sent home on leave while the Second Fighter Squadron was transferred to Tainan on the island of Formosa. Immediately, he returned to the Shimbashi District of Tokyo and his wife, Sumiko, who he had claimed in 1938 after a pledge made by their parents on Sumiko’s birthday, when Yoshi was only two years old. His son, Masahei, was four months old and Sumiko was newly pregnant.
Although Yoshi’s marriage was traditionally arranged, he was completely in love. He would never forget the first moment he met Sumiko in the main room of her parent’s western-style home in the fashionable Bara-Ku Section of Tokyo. Love struck him like a shaft of sunlight through a cloud. A polished jewel of a woman, Sumiko had a regal neck on which her head balanced elegantly like a gold chrysanthemum on its stem. Her features were classic with a straight delicate nose and large dark eyes above molded che
ekbones.
Small, perfect teeth flashed through lips formed like the petals of a rose and her body was slender yet ripe, flowing provocatively under her fine silk kimono. Within a month, they were married.
In March of 1941, the young ensign was sent to Hitokappu Bay, a remote anchorage in the Kurile Islands about 1,600 kilometers northeast of Tokyo. Although Yoshi had heard rumors of super carriers and battleships for years, Matsuhara was not prepared for Yonaga. When he stepped from the accommodation ladder onto her quarterdeck, he viewed the biggest man-made object he had ever seen. He knew that with weapons like Yonaga, Nippon was the greatest power on earth. But Yonaga was too large, a moving Fujisan. Fearing discovery of Kido Butai — the Pearl Harbor strike force of which Yonaga was the seventh carrier — the Naval High Command decided to send the behemoth on a great circle north to the hidden anchorage an Sano Wan. From here, she was to sortie on December first and strike Pearl Harbor on December seventh with the remainder of the task force. Instead of glory in the skies over Hawaii, Yoshi found tragic entrapment by a sliding glacier and forty-two years of imprisonment.
Then the dramatic break out occurred in December of 1983 with Admiral Hiroshi Fujita and the crew still bent on carrying out their orders to attack Pearl Harbor. Action was quick and bloody, feeding the samurais’ forty-two years of hunger. First, Yoshi led the fighter-bombers that strafed and sank Sparta in the Bering Sea — a small steamer captained by Brent Ross’s father, Ted “Trigger” Ross, who was taken prisoner. The Russian TU-16 jet was next, a satisfying victory that proved the battle-worthiness of the Zero-sen even against the new giants. The bloody kill of the whaler followed by the attack on Pearl Harbor where the Americans were found to be lolling in their usual unalert ineptitude.
But it had all been wrong. The defeat that none of them could conceive had been inflicted upon Japan. And Nippon had committed the unthinkable act of surrender. This had been discovered when Yonaga steamed gloriously into Tokyo Bay, bunting flying, crew standing at quarters in number one dress blues. Ironically, while the crew discussed mass seppuku, Ted “Trigger” Ross killed himself. And that afternoon, his son, Ensign Brent Ross, came aboard with Admiral Mark Allen and a delegation of American and Japanese officers.
The rest, Yoshi and Brent had experienced together. The very same fateful day Brent came aboard, the Chinese orbited their killer laser system. The world changed forever. By default, Yonaga became the most formidable fighting force afloat (the Americans called it a “weapons’ system”). Euphoria was short-lived. With the gigantic rocket and jet-propelled arsenals of Russia and America nothing but rusting junk, third world powers went wild, assembling squadrons of World War II aircraft and dozens of old warships. Particularly galling was the “Madman of Mediterranean,” Moammar Khadafy, who immediately organized a jihad of Arab states — Libya, Syria, Lebanon and even a reluctant Egypt and Jordan — to attack and finally annihilate Israel. Claiming the Mediterranean a Libyan lake, his gunboats captured the Japanese cruise ship Mayeda Maru and sailed it into Tripoli Harbor with over a thousand hostages. From that moment on, incessant warfare began.
After an audience with Emperor Hirohito, Admiral Fujita announced Yonaga s mission was to sail into the constricted waters of the Mediterranean and free the hostages. Brent would never forget the stony expression on the admiral’s face when he said, “Let Khadafy learn that those who have never known fire are the first burned.”
Quickly, an alliance was forged with the Israelis and Colonel Irving Bernstein of Israeli Intelligence came on board on liaison while Wayne Miller and Frank Dempster were assigned as representatives of America’s CIA. Circumventing restrictions against offensive weapons imposed by Japan’s Constitution, Yonaga was declared an historical monument and fell under the administration of the Department of Public Parks. With an escort of seven Fletcher class destroyers provided by the CIA under the command of Captain John “Slugger” Fite, the task force (the Americans called it “a battle group”) sailed for the Mediterranean. After ferocious fighting, hundreds of Arab planes and a task force headed by a six-inch cruiser were destroyed and the Arab jihad against Israel broken.
The battles in the Mediterranean led to more action off the Cape Verde Islands, an ambush by two submarines in the Pacific and bloody encounters in the South China Sea.
“Would it ever end?” Brent had asked Yoshi one evening while in dry dock repairing battle damage.
Yoshi had smiled. “The leaders of the world have always professed peace. Yet, throughout history, samurai like us have always been in demand — have found ample employment. No, my friend, it never ends.”
The sound of papers being riffled brought Brent’s mind back to the present and his eyes to Admiral Fujita who sat silently, staring through narrow steel-rimmed glasses with lenses like bottle ends, studying departmental reports. Uneasily, the officers stirred, only the usual ship sounds of whining blowers and rumbling auxiliary engines intruding.
Restlessly, Brent moved his eyes down the table to the scholarly, Rear Admiral Mark Allen who looked tired and slouched uncharacteristically in his chair, appearing to have aged a decade since the previous day’s attack. Next to him sat Colonel Irving Bernstein of Israeli Intelligence. Well into his sixties, with balding gray hair, he was dressed in khaki combat fatigues of the Israeli army. He appeared tall and slender even when seated, the only man in the room with hair on his face, a neatly trimmed mustache and pointed beard. His rolled sleeves revealed six blue tattooed numbers on his muscular right forearm, mementoes of a two-year stay in Auschwitz, a story of survival which defied belief.
Beside Colonel Bernstein sat Lieutenant Commander Nobomitsu Atsumi, the highly capable gunnery officer and navigator. Another “plank owner,” and Eta Jima graduate, he was tall and angular for a Japanese with black hair streaked with yellow gray strands as if he had stood too many days at high noon under the mid-Pacific sun. His skin was weathered to a honey brown that paled in comparison to his raven-black eyes. Only, a few deeply etched lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth hinted at his six decades. Unlike most of Yonagas officers, Atsumi had been cordial to Brent Ross from the beginning and a strong bond of respect and friendship had grown between them.
Brent’s restless blue eyes moved to a huge bear-like man with a florid face and full shock of white hair. Captain John “Slugger” Fite, World War II destroyer skipper and fearless escort commander, whose demeanor and burly appearance reminded Brent of the old actor Alan Hale. His laugh was big and resonant like echoes in a canyon and a leprechaun still seemed to dance mischievously in his blue Irish eyes despite the terrible losses his command had taken. Warner and Ogren and most of their crews who died gallantly in the Mediterranean in suicidal attacks on the Brooklyn class cruiser: Fortino, Philbin and Gilliland whose charging Fletchers had been blown out of the South China Sea by shells and torpedoes as they protected Yonaga with the paper-thin hulls of their destroyers.
There were new faces, too. Across the table sat the new bomber commander, Lieutenant Daizo Saiki, who replaced Commander Goka Gakki as the C.O. of the carrier’s 54 Aichi D3A dive bombers. A veteran of World War II (Admiral Mark Allen called him a “retread”) the man was small and wizened with flat, simian nostrils, gaunt features and pinched bird-like eyes that glinted with latent malevolence. The man’s most impressive aspect was his skin that hung in loose folds and tucks, that was crinkled and fissured in unaligned wrinkles, crisscrossing each other in deep patterns as if they had been scribbled on his face by a capricious child. Brent had no confidence in the man’s ability as a flyer or commander. Indeed, rumor had it that the Emperor, himself, had coerced Admired Fujita into accepting Saiki. Certainly, he was of a very prominent family.
Saiki was quick to boast about his antecedents to anyone who would listen. Dating back to the Kemmu Restoration of 1335, the Saikis were one of thirty families of the old nobility that bore the lofty rank of Urin and served as retainers to the Imperial Court. In fact, Daizo was quick to point out his lineag
e traced back to Tokimasa Saiki, a feared samurai, gifted calligrapher and skilled player of sugoroku, a primitive form of backgammon which was played by the nobles, and sometimes the Emperor, far into the night. Eventually, Tokimasa was honored with the court rank of “third degree, senior grade” Then, when the Imperial Court established residence in Tokyo during the Meiji restoration, the family’s young heir, Hideyoshi Saiki, was appointed to the exalted post of Grand Councilor of State — an honorary post the family still held.
Seated next to Saiki was another new member of the staff, Commander Tashiro Okuma, replacement for Commander Kenzo Yamabushi as commanding officer of the Nakajima B5N torpedo bomber squadrons. A young man of perhaps thirty-five, Okuma was a former member of the Self-Defense Force and one of Japan’s most accomplished pilots. It was no secret that the commander considered Yoshi Matsuhara too old to be a competent air group commander and that he, Commander Tashiro Okuma, Japan’s greatest flyer, was much better suited for the critical post. “Let the old man toy with his fighter, I will lead the attacks with new Yamato damashii,” Brent had heard him say to an admiring group of new officers in the ward room one evening.
Okuma was huge for a Japanese at an even six-feet and at least two hundred muscular pounds. A disciple of the late novelist and poet Yukio Mishima, who had committed seppuku in disgust over modern Japan’s neglect of ancient traditions and obsession for creature comforts, Okuma was a strong believer in Buddhism and Shinto. His head was shaven like a monk’s, the fine stubble of hair that covered it was ebony black and shining in the harsh light like glass fibers while his face was that of a stone Buddha — the visage of one who practiced an austere life, studying Zen and the Hagakure with equal fervor. Narrow and black under heavy brows, his eyes were arresting, sparking dangerously with a peculiar cruel glint every time they fell on Brent Ross. He reminded Brent of Lieutenant Nobutake Konoye whose consuming hatred for Americans had led to a bloody fight on the hangar deck with Brent and, eventually, to Konoye’s seppuku.