Okubo did not see Guadalcanal as a defeat but as a strategic withdrawal. Of what use was a warrior if he could not continue the fight? Meanwhile, he had helped make the Americans pay dearly for their victory.
As an officer, he had been tasked with training others in the art of marksmanship. Other officers grumbled that Okubo had no real command responsibilities, but with his family name and connections, the truth was that he could do as he pleased.
“Keep up, Private Kimura.”
“Hai!”
Behind him, he heard Kimura’s feet scrambling over rocks. Kimura was essentially his kosho, a soldier-servant who carried his gear and performed menial tasks. Although it kept Private Kimura out of the regular line of battle and from digging tank traps, it was a dangerous assignment. On Guadalcanal, Okubo had lost two such men, one to a burst of machine-gun fire. The other had been shot through the head by an American sniper, a bullet that had surely been meant for Okubo.
The two who had given their lives for Okubo and Japan had been good men and very capable. He suspected that Kimura was something of a screwup whom someone had been glad to get rid of by assigning him to Okubo.
He could have given the private his rifle to carry as the day grew warm, but he resisted the urge, because a samurai did not trust his weapons to the care of others.
One quality that Kimura possessed was good eyesight, which matched Okubo’s own eagle eyes. In that regard, they made a good pair.
Kimura pointed out to sea. “Captain, the enemy planes are returning!”
Okubo looked to where Kimura was pointing. He could just see the glint of sunlight on distant wings. Perhaps the young man’s eyes were sharper, after all.
“We must get to shelter. Hurry!”
With Okubo leading the way, they raced toward an outcropping that was being turned into a pillbox. But as fast as they ran, the enemy planes were faster, sweeping in low, almost touching the surface of the sea as they began their bombing run.
One of the American planes exploded, knocked out of the sky by the rapid fire of the Japanese antiaircraft guns guarding the airfield.
But the guns were not enough to stop the air attack. Machine-gun fire raked the airfield, scattering the men working to repair it. The Americans likely thought that they were shooting down Japanese soldiers, but almost all of those working to repair the airfield were Koreans or the Chamorro natives of Guam, who had been forced into slave labor. Bodies already dotted the tarmac before the first bombs fell.
Okubo dived into the shelter of the pillbox, Kimura right behind him, just as the first hot blast covered the ground.
“Get down, you fool!” Okubo shouted, dragging Kimura deeper into the pillbox.
A burst of machine-gun fire churned the ground like an invisible plow, not more than ten feet away. The noise of the antiaircraft guns and exploding bombs was deafening. Okubo’s ears rang, and dirt and debris rained down. The smell of cordite filled the air.
Pandemonium reigned across the airfield. Not only were the Americans targeting the concrete airfield itself, but they were also going after the aircraft on the ground. Hit by machine-gun fire, a plane exploded into a fireball.
Several pilots ran toward their planes, evidently hoping to get into the air. But first they had to run a gauntlet of fire. A burst caught one man, spun him around, and sent him to the ground.
With relief, Okubo saw that the attack had not taken the Japanese completely by surprise. There had been some warning, so that a good number of planes had gotten into the air with minutes to spare. Now those planes swooped in out of the sun to counterattack the Americans. The result was a spectacular dogfight in the skies over Guam.
A Zero dived toward the field, guns hammering, and flames erupted from an American fighter plane. It was a welcome sight, showing that the American planes were not so invincible, after all. The American plane crashed into a distant hillside. On the ground, Japanese soldiers cheered.
Beside him, Okubo heard Kimura gasp. “Sōdai,” muttered the private, using the Japanese word for magnificent.
Okubo had to agree. If he had not been a marksman, he often thought that he would have been a pilot. What was a plane but a flying sword to cut down the enemy?
There was not much that they could do to help the fight, but Okubo had an idea, now that the attacking planes had shifted their focus from the ground to the air. “Follow me,” he said.
“Hai,” Kimura said, without a great deal of enthusiasm.
Okubo left the pillbox and ran toward the flight control tower. By some miracle, it had survived this latest attack, although the rough wooden structure was only a replacement for the tower that had been destroyed days before.
They encountered a wild-eyed officer hurriedly climbing down from the tower. He looked on in disbelief as Okubo slung his rifle across his back and began to climb up.
“What are you doing?” the officer asked.
“I am fighting back,” Okubo replied. “Where are you going? You will return to your post.”
The other officer hesitated, seeming to debate whether he should listen to this madman, then nodded and took hold of the ladder.
Letting the officer get a head start, Okubo then moved up the wooden rungs. He looked back at Kimura, who appeared almost as terrified as the officer who had been fleeing the tower. “Private Kimura, follow me.”
Kimura gulped. “Hai!”
Okubo ascended the rungs of the ladder. The previous tower had used steps, but there hadn’t been time to replace those. He had to admit, he was breathing heavily by the time he reached the top of the tower. The flight control officer had stopped on the next level down and operated a machine gun intended for the tower’s defense.
From this height, Okubo had a clear view of the airfield. Falling bombs had left new craters in the concrete. Several aircraft burned on the ground. Sadly, he knew that these were aircraft that could not be replaced. The Japanese did not make use of mass production, although they had a vast industrial complex. Each aircraft motor was essentially assembled by a single mechanic; a similar method of craftsmanship was used to assemble the wings and fuselage. In normal times, this method ensured a quality product.
But the war demanded more and more planes. No matter how hard and fast the factory workers labored, they could not hope to meet the output of American mass production, where creating an aircraft was broken down into a series of steps, each worker focusing on a single basic task. There was precious little craftsmanship to be found, but there was tremendous output. He was seeing the result now in the skies over Guam, in wave after wave of American planes.
Okubo raised his rifle. He knew that there was little damage that a single bullet could do. Even hitting an enemy plane was next to impossible. But this was an act of defiance against the enemy.
He picked out his target. The planes sweeping over the field on their strafing runs were moving much too fast. Instead, he spotted a fighter plane flying right at them.
Perhaps the enemy pilot had spotted him as well. He saw the bursts of fire from the wing-mounted guns, and a stream of fire poured into the tower. Beneath them, they heard the officer that Okubo had shamed into climbing the tower scream. He glanced down and saw the man’s body hanging limply.
He returned his eye to the riflescope. With the plane traveling so fast, he knew that he would get a chance at just one shot. The gunfire from the plane continued to tear up the tower, reducing some of the support posts to splinters. It would be a wonder if the tower remained standing.
He felt the platform sway beneath his feet as the entire tower began to cant toward the east, in danger of collapsing. More machine-gun fire gnawed at the structure, but the pilot couldn’t seem to bring up the nose of the plane enough to level the guns at Okubo.