The Eternal Zero

by Naoki Hyakuta

  The Nagumo Fleet controlled the Pacific. The country that had the most powerful aircraft carriers could claim naval supremacy. This smashed previously held military common sense.

  For a long time, the world was caught in the “Dreadnought Era.” According to the thinking, direct confrontations between battleships determined the outcome of naval warfare. Battleships were the most powerful weapons in history, and massive ones were thought to be necessary to claim mastery of the seas. The British Empire indeed came to dominate the world thanks to its fleet of powerful battleships. You can fathom the impression these weapons made just from how menaced the Shogunate felt by Perry’s “Black Ships” anchored in Uraga. The history of the world was written by battleships.

  Aircraft carriers first appeared after World War I. Back then, however, the aircraft were biplanes, and carriers only played an ancillary role. Some factions pointed out that attacks carried out by aircraft were effective, but it was believed that only small ships could be sunk that way, not larger ones like battleships.

  Nevertheless, thanks to impressive developments in aeronautics, the power of aircraft carriers grew rapidly. The attack on Pearl Harbor at the outset of the war demonstrated this fact to the world. Aircraft alone were able to sink five battleships in one fell swoop. That was the moment when battleships, for hundreds of years the main actors in battles for naval supremacy, yielded the leading role to carriers.

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  There was another phenomenal battle that proved that airplanes, not battleships, ruled the seas. It took place two days after Pearl Harbor, off the coast of the Malayan peninsula. Our aircraft attacked and sank the pride of the British Royal Navy, Eastern Fleet, the state-of-the-art battleship HMS Prince of Wales, and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse. Thirty-six Type 96 land-based attack aircraft took off from Saigon and other bases, torpedoed both ships, and sent them to the bottom. It was about this naval battle that Churchill later said, “During all the war, I never received a more direct shock.”

  While the ships sunk at Pearl Harbor had been caught at anchor in a surprise attack, we sank the two British ships in open combat. In this respect, the outcome was far more shocking than Pearl Harbor. That naval engagement proved that battleships with no escort fighters were easy prey for enemy aircraft.

  Gone were the days of the Russo-Japanese War where fleets of ships faced each other in a decisive showdown. Now maritime battles pitted aircraft carriers against one another. Our Navy had six full-fledged carriers while the U.S. Pacific Fleet had five. We flexed our muscles in preparation for the carrier-on-carrier fight that we knew would come one day.

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  The chance came half a year after the start of the war. In May 1942, Japanese aircraft carriers supporting Army transport ships clashed head-on with U.S. carriers trying to prevent us from capturing Port Moresby, New Guinea. It was the world’s first battle between two aircraft carriers. Incidentally, there haven’t been any more carrier battles since Japan fought the U.S.

  Unfortunately, my carrier, the Akagi, did not participate in that battle. The Shokaku and the Zuikaku of our Fifth Carrier Division fought the USS Lexington and the Yorktown. During this, the Battle of the Coral Sea, we sank the Lexington and severely damaged the Yorktown. On our side, the Shokaku was partially damaged while the Zuikaku was untouched. In the first-ever carrier vs. carrier battle, the Imperial Navy was victorious.

  At the time, the aircrew of the First Carrier Division, assigned to the Akagi and the Kaga, was considered the most skilled. The next best was the Second Carrier Division, on the Hiryu and the Soryu. It was said that the Fifth Division on the Shokaku and the Zuikaku was slightly less capable. There was even a ditty about them that went, “If butterflies and dragonflies are birds, then so is the Fifth Division.” When those of us in the First Division heard of the outcome of the Battle of the Coral Sea, we ruefully said, “Both American carriers would have gone down, had it been us.”

  The desire to take on a hostile carrier simmered in our veins. We got our chance a month later.

  Yes, at the Battle of Midway.

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  It’s a very famous battle. Four of our carriers were sunk at once: the Akagi and the Kaga, namely the First Carrier Division and the pride of our Navy, and the Second Division’s Hiryu and Soryu.

  After the war I read many books on the causes of our failure at Midway. Bottom line, it was all the fault of our military’s arrogance.

  The U.S. forces had known all about our operation, having successfully decrypted our Navy’s code. Initially, though, their code-breaking team couldn’t figure out the location of “AF,” which we were targeting to capture. So the U.S. sent an unencrypted false message from the base at Midway that stated, “The water purification system has broken down and the base needs fresh water.” Soon after on the same day, our military sent a message stating that AF appeared to be short on water. Thus, the U.S. figured out that “AF” stood for Midway.

  The Americans were on alert, ready and waiting to ambush us. Actually, the Combined Fleet HQ had anticipated as much. Part of its plan for capturing Midway was to lure out and destroy the U.S. carrier fleet. Therefore, you could also say the U.S. Navy was suckered in.

  Before the battle, the feeling that it would be an easy victory was prevalent among our entire Navy. HQ seems to have thought that the Americans might be too frightened of our might even to pit their carriers against us. I found this out in later years, but during the planning stages at HQ, when a certain commander asked Minoru Genda, senior staff officer for aviation, “What will happen if the enemy’s aircraft carriers attack us at Midway?” he’s said to have replied, “We’ll beat ’em hands down,” which indeed would have been typical. Slightly before that, on Hirashima Island in Yamaguchi, when HQ staffers were divided into friends and foes to do a map exercise of the Battle of Midway, nine bombs managed to strike the Japanese carriers. Chief of Staff Ugaki saw this and said, “I call one third of that—make it three,” and continued the exercise, never revising the battle plan. There’s no point in such a map exercise.

  There were other instances of carelessness. We were supposed to deploy a submarine squad off the coast of Hawaii to detect the U.S. carrier fleet’s departure, but by the time the subs got there the fleet had already left Hawaii. This, too, was probably due to the misguided assumption that the U.S. carriers wouldn’t head out at all.

  Over sixty years have passed, but I still clearly remember the events of that day—the Imperial Navy’s, no, Japan’s worst day. Of course, more terrible debacles would come. But everything started to go bad at Midway.

  I took off in the morning as part of the escort for the bombers heading out to strike the base on Midway. The battle plan was two-fold: attack the base on Midway, and destroy the enemy Mobile Task Force if they showed up. Recon teams were being sent out constantly to search for the enemy.

  In a carrier-on-carrier battle, the outcome is dependent upon good recon. Find the enemy task force speeding around the vast Pacific faster than they can find yours, and hit them. That was the essence of a carrier battle.

  As I said earlier, the first such engagement was the Battle of the Coral Sea. Actually, something odd happened then. Both sides located each other and launched their bombers, but neither attack force was able to come into contact with the enemy fleet, and the first waves fizzled out. That’s when the incident occurred.

  Failing to find the enemy’s task force, our Fifth Division’s attack force returned to the carriers at night. Landing on one at night is very difficult. The first plane mistimed the landing and simply flew over the ship. It was then that the pilot realized the carrier was American! That pilot must have gotten quite the shock. The enemy carrier they’d tried so hard to find was right there where he thought his mothership would be.

  That’s how difficult battles involving hig
h-speed mobile forces are. The carriers on both sides are moving at a rate of about 50 kilometers per hour. In two hours, they can end up putting 200 more kilometers between them. As a result, it was a given that when you returned, your carrier was in a very different location from when you sortied. That’s how a pilot could find himself attempting a landing on an enemy carrier. I’m sure the American crew was just as astonished.

  In the end, the attack force fled from the enemy carrier and made it back to their own carriers, but the whole episode sounds like a bad joke, doesn’t it?

  The next morning, both carrier groups sent out reconnaissance planes to locate each other again. A recon plane from the Shokaku discovered an enemy carrier and kept the American fleet in sight, communicating their position to our forces, until it was nearly out of fuel. Attack forces immediately took off from Shokaku and Zuikaku, and along the way they passed the recon plane. It had been heading back, but it turned around and guided the attackers to the enemy position. The plane had been on its way back because it was out of fuel. Guiding friendly aircraft to the enemy meant not making it back alive.

  That reconnaissance plane was a Type 97 carrier-based attack bomber, and its leader was Flight Chief Petty Officer Kenzo Kanno, the spotter and bombardier. The other two crewmembers were FPO1 Tsuguo Goto, the pilot, and FPO1 Seijiro Kishida, the radio operator. Those three threw away their lives, praying that their comrades would triumph over the enemy.

  Sorry. I’m easily moved to tears in my old age.

  The attack forces did not let Flight CPO Kanno and his men’s sacrifice go to waste. They swooped down on the enemy mobile task force, sinking the Lexington and damaging the Yorktown. Around the same time, Shokaku and Zuikaku came under enemy fire, but the CAP of Zeros, truly lethal, shot down almost all the enemy attack bombers and dive bombers. Shokaku took three hits but Zuikaku was unharmed. Amongst Zuikaku’s CAP at that time was Tetsuzo Iwamoto. He would become the Imperial Navy’s top ace.

  Yet it’s said that the battle, though a tactical victory, ended in defeat strategically. That’s because the Japanese military’s original goal of seizing Port Moresby was thwarted. The Fifth Carrier Division’s duty was to escort Army transports which were ferrying troops for a landing, but after the carrier battle, Fleet Commander Shigeyoshi Inoue ordered the retreat of the convoy. The enemy’s task force had already evacuated far away, but in fear of it the operation was suspended. It was a decision that all but wasted the efforts of those who had bravely fought in the vanguard. Later on, the Army would carry out an extremely reckless operation to capture Port Moresby, giving its soldiers only enough provisions and fuel for a one-way journey via an overland route across the Owen Stanley Range. Tens of thousands of soldiers perished.

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  Setting aside the strategic view, though, in the Coral Sea carrier vs. carrier battle, that is to say, aircrew vs. aircrew battle, we emerged victorious. The First and Second Carrier Divisions, more adept than the Fifth, participated in the next battle at Midway. It was only natural to assume that we would win there, too.

  The Fifth Carrier Division was not part of the Battle of Midway. The Shokaku was damaged at Coral Sea and had lost a large number of aircraft and men. But I think that was odd. At the very least, Zuikaku was perfectly fine, and they probably could have replenished their aircraft somehow. Probably Combined Fleet HQ thought it was unnecessary to send in every aircraft carrier we had.

  The U.S. military was completely different in that respect. The Yorktown actually required a month’s worth of repairs, but they spent just three days patching her up and deployed her for the Battle of Midway. They say many repairmen were still aboard even as she sailed. Admiral Spruance was adamant that the Yorktown be sent to Midway even if it meant losing the ship. We had always thought that Americans were happy-go-lucky and spineless, but that wasn’t the case. They sure had guts.

  Let’s get back to June 5th and the Battle of Midway.

  I was resting in the stand-by area inside the carrier after returning from the first wave of attacks on Midway Island. Suddenly, the torpedoes on the formation awaiting sortie on the flight deck were changed out for land bombs. It seemed that the second wave of attacks on Midway was set to begin posthaste. Until then, in preparation for the American task force, the attack bombers had been loaded with torpedoes for use on ships, but after reconnaissance indicated there were no enemy forces in the area, we were apparently switching tactics and sending out a second wave of bombers to strike the land base. Looking back now, I can see that was our first bit of negligence.

  I said that the torpedoes were changed out in favor of bombs. But that’s not as simple as merely changing your shoes. The planes had to be lowered into the hangar on a lift; torpedoes removed, bombs loaded on, the planes were raised back up to the flight deck. This process had to be repeated for each aircraft, and there were dozens. Moreover, we’re talking about ordnance, which had to be handled with care. It probably took about two hours to complete unloading the torpedoes and loading the bombs. During that time, a slew of hostile planes flew in from Midway, but the already airborne Zeros handily fought them off.

  When the ordnance was finally replaced, a recon plane reported the discovery of what appeared to be an enemy task force. We thought, American aircraft carriers, at last! However, the planes on our decks were fitted with bombs meant for land-based targets. How utterly unfortunate.

  Fleet Commander Nagumo ordered the land bombs to be unloaded and the torpedoes to be equipped again. This was the correct measure to take, since land bombs could damage a carrier but not sink her. The paramount objective of the operation at Midway was to lure out the U.S. mobile forces—namely, their carrier fleet—and to annihilate them all at once. If we sank all of their aircraft carriers, we would sail unopposed in the Pacific. Lightning strikes that sent a ship to oblivion with one blow—torpedo attacks—were an absolute necessity in order to accomplish that.

  The entire carrier fleet simultaneously switched out bombs for torpedoes, a repeat of the job they had just finished. I watched the process impatiently. The enemy was a mere 200 nautical miles away, and I was anxious to take the battle to them as soon as possible. I felt miserable, thinking that if we hadn’t just re-equipped, our attack forces could have taken off ages ago.

  At some point, Miyabe appeared at my side. “Why the hell are we just loitering around? We must attack right away,” he said, uncharacteristically ruffled.

  “We can’t sink a carrier with land bombs.”

  “We don’t need to sink them. We just need to make the first move.”

  “But if we’re gonna strike anyways, might as well sink ’em, right? If we only damage them and they run away at full speed, it’ll all be for nothing.”

  “That’s better than not striking at all.”

  “The goal of this operation is to annihilate their carrier fleet. There’s no point if they escape.”

  “Then why were the torpedoes unloaded in the first place? If our primary targets are their carriers, then we should have kept the torpedoes loaded and waited for intel on their carriers.”

  I was at a loss for words. He was right. Our battle plan for Midway featured two fronts—a strategy that needed to be avoided like the plague.

  “They might come after us while we’re dithering,” Miyabe muttered to himself. Like a fool, I hadn’t even thought of such a scenario. I had just gone ahead and assumed that only our side had located the enemy.

  Just then we fighter pilots received an order to increase the number of patrol planes in the air. The flight commander ordered Miyabe and several other pilots to provide air cover. Miyabe gave me a small wave, said “I’m off,” and ran towards his Zero on the flight deck. That was the last time we would exchange words.

  Even after Miyabe and the other pilots took off, the torpedo reloading process limped along. The enemy could spot us at any moment. I felt fo
r the first time the frustration of knowing the enemy was right there but not being able to strike at them. I wasn’t even a part of the attack contingent and I was positively itching, so the bomber guys must have been truly at the limits of their patience.

  Suddenly a voice boomed out, “Enemy aircraft!” A formation of about a dozen planes was approaching at a low angle off the port side. They were still about 7,000 meters away. Our CAP guys were already on the move. The hostile aircraft were torpedo bombers. One strike from a torpedo could prove fatal.

  I was seized by tension and fear. Get it done, CAP, I prayed.

  The Zeros set on the cluster of torpedo bombers like a pack of hunting dogs. In the blink of an eye, the bombers burst into flames and fell from the sky. Every last bomber was shot down in mere minutes. It was a brilliant display. The crew on the carrier burst into spontaneous applause at such an amazing spectacle.

  Then a voice called out, “Starboard!” I turned to see eight more torpedo bombers approaching from the other side. But there were three Zeros already in hot pursuit, and the bombers were shot down in rapid succession before they could come within range. The last two dumped their torpedoes and soared, attempting to flee, but these too were downed by the Zeros.

  All the pilots of the attack force standing by on the carrier deck cheered the Zeros’ bravura performance.

  The torpedo bombers that attacked Kaga to our rear suffered the same fate. The CAP of Zeros swatted them down.