Lewis shouted back. “I’ll charge you for the ride when we get home.”
Beser was too involved to notice the maneuver; two of his instruments had lost power, and he had no idea how effective his electronic countermeasures had been against the invisible beams. Disgusted, he gave up monitoring.
The blockbuster fell within the circle. Cameramen from the Manhattan Project reported they had managed to record its fall. Their films were flown to Los Alamos, where they were studied by scientists still trying to determine the best final shape for the atomic bomb.
Measuring instruments around the AP calculated that Lewis was over seven miles away when the bomb hit.
Tibbets was relieved. The maneuver meant that an aircraft should be able to avoid the atomic bomb’s shock wave. He expressed his relief to one of the scientists who was with him on the bombing range.
The man gave Tibbets a chilling response. “Seven miles, twenty miles, fifty miles. There is no way of telling what the safe distance is until we drop a real atomic bomb.”
It was evening when Tibbets returned to Wendover. In his office he continued to review the tactical requirements for delivering an atomic bomb.
Though by October 21 he knew a great deal more than he had a month earlier, he was far from reassured. The uncertain nature of the explosion—nobody could be positive how big it would be—and the predicted shock wave—another imponderable—had helped to rule out the use of a fighter escort. To be sure of surviving the shock wave, fighters would have to be so far away from the explosion just when the bomber was at its most vulnerable that it was unlikely they could provide proper protection. Further, a fighter escort might succeed only in drawing attention to the bomber. Tibbets made up his mind.
The bomber would go in alone.
That, too, raised problems: flak and enemy fighters. It was likely that the final approach would be made over enemy-held territory, at least part of which would undoubtedly have fighter protection. The more Tibbets thought about it, the less the chance of success seemed. The bomber could be destroyed long before it reached its objective.
Then Tibbets recalled his experience in New Mexico.
Months before, he had been there carrying out tests to assess a B-29’s susceptibility to fighter attack. He had been irritated to find that his usual B-29, the one he used for all his tests, was out of commission. He was offered another one—stripped of its guns.
He decided to fly it to give the fighter pilots a chance to practice. Tibbets quickly discovered the stripped B-29 could operate some four thousand feet higher than his usual bomber. It was faster and more maneuverable. He was able to outpace the P-47 fighters making mock attacks on him. Finally, at thirty-four thousand feet, the fighters had to give up; the strain on their engines was too great.
As he recalled the experience, Tibbets began to feel excited. Flak was largely ineffective at over thirty-two thousand feet, and Tibbets knew that a P-47 fighter was similar in performance to a Japanese Zero.
With Japan likely to provide a target city, Tibbets reasoned his best possible chance of survival would be to use a stripped-down B-29 for the mission. He would take out all the armor plating and all the guns, apart from the two in the tail.
He telephoned the flight line and told the ground crews to begin work at once on stripping down the two bombers already at Wendover.
“Tonight?” asked an incredulous line chief.
“Now,” said Tibbets firmly.
The mechanics thought the idea “plumb crazy.” Later, they would christen the emasculated bombers Sitting Target One and Sitting Target Two.
11
In tight formation, five aircraft flew east over the Pacific. All their pilots hoped to die soon.
The fliers wore white scarfs loosely knotted around their necks. Under their leather flying helmets, concealed by their goggles, each man also wore a hachimaki, a replica of the headband that samurai warriors had traditionally worn in battle in ancient Japan. This morning the band was the symbol of the Special Attack Corps of suicide pilots, the shimpu, or “divine wind.” Later these pilots, and many others like them, would be called kamikazes, a Western transliteration of the characters that in Sino-Japanese are pronounced shimpu. The first shimpu were the momentous typhoons of 1241 and 1281 which, according to legend, rescued Japan from the fury of the Mongols.
The men chosen to launch this new shimpu had been told just before taking off a few hours earlier that they were “gods without earthly desires.” Their Zeros contained 250-kilogram bombs. The pilots planned to crash-dive onto the ships of the American fleet now just beyond the horizon.
This plan had been devised only six days previously by Vice-Admiral Takijiro Onishi. To all the adjectives applied to the moon-faced commander—arrogant, brilliant, condescending, and uncompromising—another could be added in these last days of October: desperate.
Onishi was no longer the confident leader who had helped devise the attack on Pearl Harbor; who had launched the crippling assault on Clark Field, Manila, which had wiped out America’s air force in the Far East; who had sent his pilots marauding through the Pacific.
Those days were over. Retaliation was on the way. A huge American fleet had been spotted heading toward the Philippines. If those islands fell, Japan’s supply lines would be fatally ruptured. Onishi was given command of the First Air Fleet, operating from Manila. This once-impressive force consisted now of less than a hundred aircraft. But they were enough for Onishi. On October 19, he had presented his plan for shimpu.
There had been an enthusiastic response from his pilots. The men now over the Pacific were about to deliver the first blow.
They had, of course, written their final letters and farewell poems. Some had left brief wills. Each, in accord with the tradition of samurai leaving for their final battle, had enclosed locks of hair and nail parings, all that was to remain of their bodies on earth.
Before takeoff, Onishi himself had poured every man a ceremonial cup of sake and offered him a dish of dried cuttlefish. As each pilot took his cup, he had bowed and lifted the sake in both hands to his lips. Onishi had then handed every pilot a small lunch box, bento, to provide them with the comfort of a last-minute snack.
At 10:45 A.M., the suicide squadron sighted their enemy, an American carrier force with destroyer escorts.
The pilots bored in, scattering tinfoil to jam the American radar. Each pilot pulled a toggle which prepared the bomb in his plane for detonation.
At 10:53 A.M., the first Zero crashed-dived onto the flight deck of the aircraft carrier St. Lo. Plane and pilot disintegrated in a huge explosion. This was the “splendid death,” rippa na saigo, which Onishi had promised.
The St. Lo began to sink.
By 10:59 A.M., October 25, 1944, all five planes had hit their targets. The mission had been a total success.
More would follow.
12
The 393rd received its fifteenth stripped-down B-29 on November 24. The squadron was now at full strength. The removal of armor plating and all guns except those in the tail turrets no longer caused comment. Pilots found it gave them extra height and speed, although they were not totally convinced by Tibbets’s contention that in combat they would be out of range of flak and enemy fighters.