I went out to the airfield for a walk. Few Tenzans escaped the bullets. I made my way to the end of the runways. Ripe horsetails covered the fields, which gave off the fresh scent of spring grass. What appeared to be a local farmer’s wife and her daughter were heading home, carrying a coarsely woven basket full of horsetails.
“It’s all right. Can I help you?” I asked, concerned that they might think I’d come to shoo them away. “Thank you,” they said, “but we’ve already called it a day. It looks like rain.” Indeed, it soon began to mist. I stood alone on the empty airfield, gazing from a distance at the land-based attack bombers, with their wings crumpled by rocket fire, and at the burnt-out engines that lay scattered around, abandoned. A feeling of desolation overcame me, as if I were on an ancient battlefield.
The banner of the Ohka’s Nonaka Unit is gone. “Glory to the Sutra of the Lotus of the Supreme Law,” it had said, borrowing a phrase from the Nichiren Buddhists. I was told that the unit had advanced to Kanoya, from which place they are today supposed to mount an attack on two enemy task forces, three hundred sixty nautical miles south of the base. The Ohka men always had an air of gloom about them. On the other hand, the crews of the land-based attack bombers that carry them possess the hearts of lions. Their valor is unparalleled. Sometimes I think I could never match them in a million years of effort. About a dozen Type-1s will set out in the morning, each hugging an Ohka. The wear-and-tear on the mother planes is extreme. On any given raid, half of them are shot down, and the remainder hobbles back after releasing their Ohkas, perforated by bullets. The men eat lunch and set out again, hugging another Ohka. A few hours later a few of them return, with still more bullet holes. The men never crow about their exploits or demand any special consideration. They simply rest for a spell and take to the skies again, toward evening. Until all of them are lost.
It’s hard to say which is the more trying, to be the Ohka attacker who sorties never to come back, or to be the attack bomber pilot who carries him. But surely it is no ordinary thing, or so it seems to me, to keep setting out and coming back, like a pilot on some commuter run, until you die.
Our comrades on Iwo-jima have finally perished, in the last ditch effort. It happened at midnight on March 17, I hear. Reports say they killed or wounded seventy-three percent of the enemy’s landing force, thirty three thousand men in total, and that they earned us a precious month to prepare for the defense of mainland Japan. The question is whether or not this is the whole story. What did we do to assist the desperate fight that the officers and men made on that island? Could it be that all we really managed to give them was a pep talk, sent in by radio? Isn’t the bottom line that we left them in the lurch, without being able to do anything about their situation? At times I think that their fate will be ours also.
March 24
Reveille at 0530. The enemy has attacked Okinawa. An order was given to seven carrier attack bombers to stand ready. The time for us to make our special attack mission finally nears.
The Ohka attacks of the Jinrai Unit failed, with more than 500 Grummans intercepting them. Not one of our fighter planes, sent along for cover, returned. The leader of the raid, Lieutenant Commander Goro Nonaka, died in action. I hear the enemy has given the Ohka the code name BAKA, or fool. I really wish we could somehow show them what the determined soul of a fool is like. I simply don’t know what to say.
At four o’clock, the commander addressed us in the lecture hall. But enough already about the “national crisis” and the “sacred cause,” we will do what we are supposed to do, without all the talk. Who granted the recon students those excessive flights? Who gave them fuel, granted them a homecoming leave after graduation, and got us in this mess? If only our commanders had allowed us even one hundred hours in the air, we would be much less anxious, ready to embark without a moment’s notice. We are resigned to do our duty, green though we may be, but not out of loyalty to the military clique in the Imperial Navy. I take to heart what somebody declared after our sumo match.
March 26
American troops have begun landing on the Kerama Islands. Five battleships and twenty destroyers are blasting away at Okinawa, and their main task force seems to be positioned in the eastern waters. The surviving crewmen from our Type-1 group have all set out. Word is that a standby order was also given to the Ginga and Tenzan Units.
The newspaper carried an article about the Shincho Special Attack Force that assaulted the U.S. fleet at its anchorage in Ulithi. The article doesn’t come right out and say so, but it looks like these attacks involved “human torpedoes” fired from submarines. More than half of the crewmen on those torpedoes had once been student reserves. Do the officers from the Naval Academy still regard us as monkeys?
At lunchtime, I received a letter from my father. Learned that our house was safe. A great relief.
This afternoon, we went out to Yokkaichi on air defense operations. If you walk around to the back of the operations area and climb over a rise, you see a dreamscape, a beautiful fold of hills. Overlapping mountains melt into the spring mist in the distance, and the knolls roll off into orchards. Houses with red plum blossoms, hemp fields, pine woods. Tall pampas grass glows in the sun. Bush warblers twitter as they toss freely about, not in the least bit wary of human beings. Along the branch of a buttonwood tree, a bunting basks in the mild sun. The oleasters already bear fruit, though it is not yet ripe. The Yabakei Gorge is probably a ways back in this direction. The water quivers as loach swim in the rice fields. At the base, too, schools of crucian carp and roach teem in the ditches by the field headquarters. For some reason, the contrast between the natural tranquility of these scenes and the fierce desperation of battle seems so unreal.
April 3
Last night, the Wake Squadron of the Go-oh Unit was ordered to make its first sortie. Lieutenant Fujii of the 10th Class (from the University of Tokyo) will lead the carrier attack bombers, and Lt.jg Ennamiji of the 13th Class (from Waseda University) will lead the carrier bombers. Two carrier bomber pilots from our class, Ensigns Ueno and Sugimoto, will also join the mission. Ueno is from Senshu University, and Sugimoto from Keio. Not a single name of a Naval Academy graduate appears on the list. The attack force consists entirely of reserve officers.
Alter the announcement, Lieutenant Fujii invited me to his room for a drink. He was outraged at the dirty tactics of the Academy graduates. Until very recently he had been in service overseas, and he was assigned to this station in order to get some rest. I can’t blame him for being infuriated at the orders. Apparently it’s pretty common practice in other units, too, for Academy graduates to stay behind on the pretext that they have to conserve their crews and aircraft. Baffling things happen in the navy.
At seven this morning, Lieutenant Fujii emerged, a new headband on his forehead and a saber in his hand, and climbed into his plane. It is painted green, and had been wiped clean. Not a word of complaint from him today. His last remark was, “Hug the earth and fall, each one of you.”
The crews had plucked sprigs from cherry trees and peach trees, and now placed them on the recon seats, or else attached them to their aviation caps. Next came the trial runs. The deafening roar seemed to overwhelm our emotions. I couldn’t hear a thing. The planes eased into a glide and formed on the apron. Shortly, Lieutenant Fujii stood up on the recon seat and raised his hand high. And with that, the men took off, heading either for Kushira or Kokubu, in Kagoshima. Some looked cheerful, while others had gone pale from the tension. Then all we could see were their hands, waving briskly from the planes, which slipped out of sight one by one. I pray they successfully reach their targets; there is nothing else to pray for. I couldn’t maintain my composure at all as I waved my cap to see them off.