A body without a head, an arm without a body, and what looked like a lump of guts. In addition, agonizing howls from the medical ward, as surgeons amputate legs without anesthetic.
Time bombs scattered about the airfield have put it totally out of commission. We have difficulty communicating orders, and make little progress recovering bodies. I go out with a pail to pick up stray hands, or legs with the shoes still on. A brain bisected by shards from a bomb looks like a cross section taken along a fault line. As was the case with Fujikura, men who die from injuries like this shed very little blood.
Ensign Makita’s sister happened by for a visit this afternoon, the very day when he was severely injured and now lay in critical condition. She was granted special permission to see him, though he didn’t acknowledge her. She insisted on staying to look after her brother, but the request was denied. She left the base, her eyes red, saying she would remain in Beppu to monitor his condition. It’s strange how family members sometimes pay a visit just after a man is killed in action, or on the day he is to make his sortie.
The girls’ school we were using as barracks was also struck by firebombs and burned to the ground. I lost my shoes, but my clothing was saved. I’m truly sorry for the girls. I haven’t eaten anything since morning, except for one rice ball, at around two in the afternoon. I have been too agitated all day to feel any hunger. Dinner was hardtack, which I soon tired of. Hardtack makes me parched as all hell.
Slept in a bunker along the Yakkan River. Incessant groans during the night. Then I heard men talking nearby, “It’s heavy,” “Yeah, it sure is,” as they carried away a victim who had just died.
April 23
Each division dug a pit today to burn the one hundred fifty bodies we’ve so far managed to recover. Lieutenant Ioka’s wife attended the cremation, their newborn baby in her arms. Come to think of it, I can’t count anymore just how many bodies we’ve buried along this riverside.
In the afternoon, we began repairing the airfield. Time bombs still explode now and then, making the work quite dangerous. The flames of the funeral pyres died down in the early evening, but the bodies hadn’t yet been consumed. Ensign Kado’s midsection still remained pretty much intact. It might have bled if you poked it with a stick. Now I can watch and listen as the flesh of my comrades is seared on scorched galvanized sheet metal, without so much as a shudder. I guess I’ve grown extremely insensitive to death. As for my own life, however, I still seem to possess a strong instinct to protect that. I flee, like a streak of lightning, before I even know it. I have no clue as to what may happen when I dive into my target. But anyway I have no attachment to personal belongings, to clothing or any other property. I do regret just a little, though, that I loaned Mokichi’s Winter Clouds to T. It burned up, along with the chest of drawers he kept it in.
After the sun set, we went to the farmer’s house on top of the hill to use their bath. I looked at the beautiful roses in their yard as I waited my turn. A big moon showed itself on the way back.
April 28
Operation Kikusui, Number 4, has begun. Today, our country mounted a full-scale attack on Okinawa. As far as Usa Air Station is concerned, however, the whole thing is someone else’s affair, and no wonder: we don’t have any airplanes. Questionable rumors of our transfer are still making the rounds. The story goes that the carrier attack bomber division will be transferred either to Hyakuri-hara, in Ibaraki Prefecture, or else to Chitose, in Hokkaido.
An enemy task force of fourteen aircraft carriers has been sighted at Okinawa. All I can do is pray for the country. We live in the cave now, a dark, smelly, dank existence. Our clothes get damp within a day’s time, and it is quite chilly at night. It seems I caught a cold, as my temperature approached thirty-nine degrees. I received a blow on the chin for looking so languid. I don’t know what to think about hitting someone simply because he has a fever. But no matter. We will endure it, come what may. We fashioned a canvas canopy to prevent the dirt from falling down on us, and to pretty the place up a bit we displayed some dolls and neatly spread out the blankets that escaped the fire. But the lights are hardly on at all throughout the day.
The riverside is very pleasant in the morning. I tread across the wet sand to wash my face, and notice the tracks of a wagtail, or some other little bird, patterning the beach. Small translucent fish cling to the riverbed under the currents that gently roll in from the sea. When I rinse my mouth, the water clouds up from the toothpaste, obscuring them. Before long, Baku, the dog the carrier bomber group keeps, turns up from somewhere and hangs around, wagging its tail. Such is my morning routine. Baku is a shaggy mutt. Recently, she gave birth to puppies, which are so adorable I don’t know what to say. We attack bomber crews plan to adopt one of them, but we have to wait a little while longer, until they are weaned.
I guess I’m lucky to have survived this long, but the thought of it gives me a pang. We form the backbone of this base. We are the most senior aircrews under the commander now, with the exception of a few recon men from the 13th Class. More than two-thirds of the former 13th Class students have been killed at the front. Now the fate of the nation entirely depends on how we die.
We need more fuel and aircraft.
May 3
We were granted an excursion for the first time in forty-nine days. I’ve recovered from my cold. I stopped by a number of places, the Kajiya Inn in Kamegawa, the bookstore, Senbiki-ya, and the barbershop in Beppu. Wherever I went, everybody was stunned, as if I’d returned from Hell or something. I got a hearty welcome. The beer was good, as were the summer oranges, and the Spanish mackerel sashimi was delicious.
“How is Ensign Fujikura?”
“How about Mr. Sakai?”
Each time I was asked these questions, I had to tell the story again of how their lives had ended. In reply, some could say nothing more than “Right…”, their eyes brimming with tears.
“I really don’t want any more of you to die,” one woman said. “Isn’t there any way at all to end this war?” Actually, this was the proprietress of the barbershop. I was at a loss as to what to say to her.
“That’s just not how it works,” I said cheerfully, making a perfunctory reply. “This is only the beginning.”
The era when the special attack force was sanctified is over with. Nobody in the navy considers it “special” now. Only the newspapers keep deifying it, vulgarly, habitually. And now that the mystique has been dispelled, we all feel freer to express our anguish as ordinary men. I guess this means that, emotionally anyway, we feel a bit more natural, and our minds are more at ease. However, when his time comes, every crewman departs wearing a lovely, graceful expression. Probably I will, too, and yet when I hear words like those of the barber, I’m suddenly overcome with longing for the “free” world again, and I start thinking, say, about my mother.
After being confined to base for so long, I enjoyed the excursion immensely, but by the time the sun went down and I headed back, I was seized with an indescribable loneliness, as always at the end of an outing. A swarm of river crabs was crawling out of a cliffside onto the street. As I approached, they watched me warily, bodies half withdrawn back into their holes. Then I went after the ones on the street, and they scurried away angrily, red claws raised. I loitered there for a while, goofing around with the crabs. I was lonesome.
At last, Germany has surrendered. The sword is broken, the quiver is empty. The Red Army has virtually seized Berlin. Hamburg Radio, the only station still in German hands, has announced that Hitler died on the afternoon of May 1. Admiral Doenitz has been appointed supreme commander of the armed forces, but I guess his duty will essentially be to negotiate the terms of surrender. I also hear that Mussolini was captured and killed, his body exposed in a square in Milan.