May 7
Some forty B-29s assaulted the base this morning, badly damaging the apron. There weren’t many casualties, as we had been on full alert, but the time bombs prevent us from going out. They blow up now and then, like land mines, kicking a cloud of dust more than a hundred meters into the air. Judging from this, the enemy’s bombs must be more powerful than our 800 kg No.80s. The fierce blasts even reach our cave, five hundred meters from the airfield.
A group of army planes called the “Toryu” intercepted the enemy, achieving some results. One charged into a B-29, taking it down on Mt. Hachimen. A few enemy fliers bailed out in parachutes, and Ensign Nikaido and I set out to capture them. We combed the hill with the help of a civil defense unit and managed to seize two men toward evening. They emerged with their hands up, looking carefree. They were both twenty-two, and roughly correspond to trainees in our country, or so it appears. One is a Sergeant Romance, and I forgot the name of the other. Sgt. Romance was a gunner on the port side. When he saw a Japanese fighter closing in from the left, he instinctively judged that it would smash into the plane, and he bailed out in a panic. He actually had the nerve to say that he was hungry, and as we passed through Nakatsu, he waved his hands, smiling at the crowd that had gathered out of curiosity. I don’t know if I should properly call him ingenuous or hateful. Either way, it’s astonishing to see how utterly his temperament differs from ours. When showered with blows, he frowns a bit, but then he looks as if nothing at all had happened. Seeing as how we had suffered such heavy casualties from the bombings, some among us were in an uproar, and insisted that we rough the Americans up. However, we received strict orders as to the handling of the prisoners. As for Romance and his comrade, they seem to have no fear at all for their safety. Apparently, they assume U.S. forces will rescue them soon enough.
Today, word came that we’ll be transferred to Hyakuri-hara. Each is to board the train at his convenience and leave here on the 11th. Usa Naval Air Station will be disbanded.
At sunset, the naval ensign was lowered. We saluted in the cave, from a distance. All the buildings on the base are in ruins. Watching the flag slowly go down for the last time in the tranquil evening sun, I felt deep emotion. Usa was severe, but all the more rewarding for it. With Beppu nearby, we were blessed with a hot spring and plentiful food. Also, we sent off so many of our friends from this place. They will never come back.
Hyakuri-hara is situated in the most out-of-the-way place in Ibaraki Prefecture. There isn’t a house for twelve kilometers in any direction, I hear. It’s also a long way to the nearest railway station. Enjoyable outings will be pretty much out of the question.
Hyakuri-hara Naval Air Station
May 21
On May 11, as the “all clear” was issued, we left Usa Naval Air Station in the rain and took the northbound train that leaves Yanagiga-ura at 1400. Romance and his friend stayed behind in the hands of the remaining force and should be sent to some camp or other before long. Our seats were in a second-class car. It was pleasant, not at all like a troop train. Each man received a bottle of wine, three bags of crackers, and a ration of flight food. I saved mine for later, as I wanted to eat it at my home in Osaka. The train was seven hours late by the time it arrived in Osaka. I got a close look at the bombed-out sites there and at Kobe. It was horrible. All of a sudden, images of San Francisco, Chicago, and New York came to mind—those self-satisfied American cities, secure in their stone-built prosperity and without so much as a scratch to mar them. And I thought, never again can I persuade myself that we might win this war. We simply have to fight and fight and fight, all the way down until we meet our end.
Nobody was at the station for me. I later learned that my father and uncle had waited from nine in the morning till five in the afternoon, until they finally got tired and went home, just before the train pulled in.
I left the station and found the city of Osaka rough and unkind, overcome with war-weariness. Wherever I went, I met cold looks and sulking faces. Not that I want them to show any special courtesy just because I’m a navy pilot, but I didn’t see even the slightest sign of a willingness to bear a part. What a change since I left here in my school uniform one and a half years ago in a rain of hurrahs! On the tram, I came across an old bird in a workman’s waistcoat and puttees, dangling a duffel bag.
“What the hell do they think they’ll do now?” he said, addressing me point-blank. “Damn stupid of them to start such a hopeless war!” I struggled so hard to resist the temptation to turn on him that I couldn’t enjoy the old familiar Osaka dialect.
The pain, however, didn’t last long. Once I made my way to our old home, which had escaped the fires, it was good to be with my father, good to be with my mother. The place was suffused with the nostalgic scent of home, and I found it hard to leave again. That night, I chatted over drinks amid the familiar faces of my father’s three brothers, and of K. and M., who are staying with my family, until half past two in the morning.
On the 13th, I dropped in on a few neighbors and then left home at eleven. My mother hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep, and neither, by the looks of it, had my father. I was the only one who had had a good, sound sleep. At Otake Naval Barracks, at Himeji Station, and in Beppu—so often have I parted with my father, each time supposing it would be the last I ever saw of him, and yet today I again had the good fortune to be escorted to Osaka Station by him. Looking at the devastated landscape along the Yodo River as the train sped across it made me feel broken-hearted. Tears rose in my eyes.
I broke my journey at Kyoto and headed straight for Kyoto University. It was very careless of me, though, to have forgotten that it was Sunday. I couldn’t find anyone, and I didn’t have time to make it out to Professor E.’s house. I left Kyoto in haste on the 1645 train. What a shame.
It was past five the next morning by the time I arrived in Tokyo. At Ueno Station, I boarded the 1403 train on the Joban Line to go to Ishioka, and there I changed to a light railway that took me to Ogawa. I arrived at Hyakuri-hara at close to seven in the evening. The base is eight kilometers from Ogawa, and there is no public transportation between the town and the base. Since I arrived here, I have been living like a drone, day after day. Training flights start tomorrow. Twenty-eight pilots have been chosen.
May 26
Tokyo has suffered an extensive raid again last night. Some two hundred fifty B-29s carried out indiscriminate attacks against the urban districts from ten thirty to two thirty. The uptown area seems particularly to have suffered.
Standing outside at Hyakuri-hara, I could see balls of fire floating in the skies over Tokyo. These were B-29s that had been shot. They don’t go down easily, even when engulfed in flame. They seemed to be sucking up the red, yellow, and green tracer bullets coming at them from every direction. Plunging down in flames, and drawing a straight line, like a meteor, was a Japanese fighter. It was all a gorgeous feast of celestial fire. Our side reportedly shot down twenty-seven B-29s during the raid the night before last, and forty-seven more last night. It might be the usual over-reporting, but it doesn’t seem incredible, either.