The Eternal Zero

by Naoki Hyakuta

  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it was a really grueling battle.

  * * *

  —

  The Guadalcanal Campaign ended in February of 1943. The conflict drew to a close after six months of intense fighting that started in August of ’42.

  Imperial General HQ had given up on recapturing Ga Island, and destroyers retrieved the 10,000-odd troops remaining there and retreated. Ship crew who saw the emaciated soldiers from “Starvation Island” were speechless.

  The half-year Guadalcanal Campaign’s casualties were atrocious. Five thousand troops had died in land battles. Fifteen thousand had died of starvation.

  The IJN had also spilled great quantities of blood. Twenty-four warships sunk, 839 aircraft lost, and 2,362 crewmen killed in action. What a massive loss of life for a battle we ultimately lost. And by the time the campaign ended, the seasoned pilots, the jewels of the IJN, had mostly perished.

  Looking back now, it was clear at that point that Japan would lose the war. Yet the fight against America would drag on for more than two years.

  * * *

  —

  Even though we had lost Guadalcanal, the Solomon Islands proved to be an important battlefront where American and Japanese forces clashed.

  That April, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto announced Operation I-Go, a counteroffensive intended to destroy the enemy’s air fleet. The plan was to send what little carrier-based aircraft and aircrew we had left to land bases around Rabaul in order to knock out the enemy’s air power in an all-out attack.

  Admiral Yamamoto came to Rabaul to helm the operation himself. The Combined Fleet’s commander-in-chief deigned to speak directly to those of us on the front lines, raising our spirits.

  Operation I-Go was successful, and we managed to complete our objectives in thirteen days instead of the projected fifteen. In exchange for our gains, we lost many more aircraft and crewmen.

  But tragedy struck afterwards. The Type 1 land-based attack bomber transporting Admiral Yamamoto was shot down by enemy forces as he traveled from Rabaul to the forward base in Buin. Having broken all of the Japanese military codes they had intercepted, the Americans ambushed the admiral’s plane. He had flown with a fighter escort, but the six Zeros were unable to foil the surprise attack launched by the enemy, which had lurked in the clouds.

  The death of Admiral Yamamoto dealt an immeasurable blow to the Imperial Navy.

  I also want you to know the tragedy that befell the six Zero pilots who’d failed to protect the admiral’s aircraft. They were ordered to sortie daily much like they were being punished. In just four months, four of them died in combat, and a fifth lost his right hand. Only one, Flight Chief Petty Officer Shoichi Sugita, survived, having fought like a lion, leaving an impressive record of over a hundred kills. They say his fights were bloodcurdling, as if he were seeking vengeance for Admiral Yamamoto.

  But in the final year of the war, he passed away at Kanoya Base in Kyushu. I was told about his last battle after the war had ended. That day, CPO Sugita went to board his fighter in order to ambush incoming fighters, but the enemy was already right on top of them. Ensign Sakai yelled, “It’s too late! Get back!” Yes, the very same FPO1 Sakai who had made that miraculous return journey back from Guadalcanal was now an ensign with the 343rd Naval Air Group. Despite Ensign Sakai’s attempt to hold him in check, Sugita bravely climbed into his Kawanishi N1K2 fighter and raced down the runway. Just as he took off, though, he was fired on by the enemy aircraft overhead and crashed into the runway.

  * * *

  —

  I was assigned to the aircraft carrier Shokaku as part of an attempt to replenish its aircrew after devastating losses sustained from Operation I-Go. The Shokaku was a storied vessel that had fought since the attack on Pearl Harbor. She and her sister ship, the Zuikaku, were designated as part of the First Carrier Division, the core of the Mobile Task Force. Yet the force had lost its former might and faced a hopeless battle against its increasingly powerful American counterpart.

  Flight Leader Miyabe remained at Rabaul. They had renamed the ranks for NCOs on down in November of the previous year, so Flight Petty Officer 1st Class Miyabe was now Flight Chief Petty Officer. Meanwhile, Flight Seaman 1st Class, my rank, became Flight Leading Seaman. At the same time, I was promoted to Flight Petty Officer 2nd Class, that is to say, from a sailor to a non-comm.

  Even after the failed campaign to recapture Guadalcanal, Rabaul remained a strategic point in the South Pacific. In fact, it was our most important base, the focus of the enemy’s counterstrike. By that time, American attack forces taking off from bases around New Guinea conducted raids on a near-daily basis. As the saying goes, it was hell to leave and hell to stay.

  When I received orders to depart from Rabaul and join the crew of the Shokaku, I spoke with CPO Miyabe as we gazed out at Mt. Tavurvur.

  “Izaki, don’t die,” he said.

  “I won’t.”

  “Even if the carrier sinks, don’t just go and blow yourself up.”

  “As if I would. I’ve survived Rabaul for over a year. I won’t die so soon. Besides, you’ve saved my life twice now, sir. If I were to give up too easily, that would be an insult to you.”

  CPO Miyabe laughed.

  Just then Tavurvur belched up a great deal of volcanic smoke.

  * * *

  —

  “It’s pretty active today,” he said.

  “Today might be the last time I ever see that volcano.”

  CPO Miyabe didn’t reply. I had always stared at that volcano until I got bored with it, but that day I realized I’d never see it again. So I stared hard, trying to burn its image into my head.

  Even now I can close my eyes and see the shape of that mountain. This is getting off-topic a bit, but about fifty years after the war, it erupted, burying the nearby town and the airport in ash. Everything that served as a reminder of those years vanished. It’s as if the volcano was trying to tell us to forget the war.

  Ever since its conclusion, I’ve wanted to go back to Rabaul just once, but here I find myself never having had the chance. And, actually, I don’t really regret it that much.

  “My grandfather was a vassal of the Tokugawa shogunate,” CPO Miyabe muttered all of a sudden. “When I was little, he often spoke of the olden days. Whenever he took me to Ueno, he always told me about the Battle of Ueno between the Shogitai defectors and the government forces. And his tales weren’t limited to just Ueno. My grandfather told me all kinds of stories about the history of various places around Tokyo. It’s so strange to think about. The Edo period feels like the world of raconteurs and plays, but back then my grandfather fought with the likes of Saigo Takamori.” CPO Miyabe laughed as though bemused. “To my young mind, those tales sounded terrifying. My grandfather bore a scar from a bullet wound he’d received. ‘Still have the bullet inside me,’ he’d say.”

  “Oh, wow.”

  “He’d sure be surprised to learn that now his grandson is fighting the Americans,” he laughed. “I wonder if I’ll ever see the day where I’ll tell stories about this war to my own grandchild. Basking in the sun on the porch, maybe I’d say, ‘Your granddad once flew a fighter and fought the Americans’…”

  Hearing him say this gave me an odd feeling. I couldn’t picture the decades-far future he spoke of. But when I realized that such a day would someday come to pass, I was seized with a strange sensation.

  “I wonder what sort of country Japan will be then,” I said.

  CPO Miyabe got a faraway look in his eyes. “Perhaps they, too, will feel like they’re hearing fairytales, just as I did when my grandfather told me about the Edo period.”

  I tried to imagine it. Sitting on the porch in the early-afternoon sunlight. My grandchild coming up and begging for a story—and me turning to say, A long time ago, Grandpa fought in a war on a tropical island…r />
  “I hope it’ll have become a peaceful country,” I mumbled without thinking, surprising myself. I found it hard to believe that such words had come from my own mouth. To think that I, a fighter pilot who risked my life in battle, fully prepared to die in the war, would say such a thing.

  CPO Miyabe gave me a deep nod.

  I took off from Rabaul very early the next morning. CPO Miyabe saw me off, waving his hat.

  After taking off, I wheeled around once over the airfield. I could see CPO Miyabe yelling out to me, and his lips were forming the words: “Do. Not. Die.” That was my final image of him.

  I gave him a salute and left Rabaul.

  * * *

  —

  I heard that Miyabe-san died a kamikaze.

  I found out the year after the war ended. I cried. They were tears of regret. I thought in earnest that a nation who expended such a wonderful man in a kamikaze mission deserved to fall into ruin.

  * * *

  —

  My sister had been weeping through the latter half of Izaki’s story. He stared hard at her, his own eyes brimming with tears.

  Then he said quietly, “To tell you the truth, I have terminal cancer.”

  I nodded.

  “Half a year ago the doctors said I had three months left to live. Yet somehow I’m still here.” Izaki looked right at us. “Now I know why I lived to see today. I was allowed to live to tell you all that. Miyabe-san said what he did before we parted ways at Rabaul so that I might someday.”

  Just then, Izaki’s own grandson started crying. He wept aloud, completely unconcerned that he was in the presence of strangers. His mother and the nurse kept dabbing their eyes with their handkerchiefs, too.

  Izaki gazed out the window at the sky. “Flight leader, your grandchildren have come to see me. They’re both absolutely wonderful. Just like you, the lad is a fine young man. Can you see them, flight leader?”

  Keiko pressed both hands to her eyes.

  Izaki closed his and lay down on the bed. “Sorry, I’m a little tired.”

  “Are you all right?” asked the nurse, immediately on her feet.

  “I’m fine. But I’ll rest for a while.”

  The nurse gave us a meaningful look.

  “Thank you very much, sir,” I said, rising. But Izaki didn’t seem to have heard me. He had wrung out every last drop of strength talking to us.

  I wiped my tears away and placed a hand on my sister’s shoulder. She nodded silently and stood up.

  “He seems a bit tired. I’m going to have him get some rest,” the nurse said.

  Izaki was already asleep, his face very peaceful. I bowed deeply to Izaki’s sleeping figure and left the hospital room.

  When we reached the lobby, Suzuko and her son caught up with us.

  “That was the first time I’ve ever heard my father talk about those times.”

  “I’ve never heard Grandpa tell such things,” her son said, tears still streaming down his cheeks. “Gosh, Grandpa is so mean, never telling his own grandkid his stories. I’d love to have heard all that on a porch.”

  Tearfully, he turned to his mother.

  “Mom. I’m sorry I’ve been so…”

  The end of his sentence was unintelligible. Seeing her son in such a state, Suzuko wept as well.

  “This has become a very precious day for us. Thank you both so much,” she said, wiping at her face and bowing deeply. “It seems it’s thanks to Miyabe-san that my father was able to survive the war and make it home. I was extremely moved by his story. Thank you so very much.”

  I was totally lost for words. All I could do was bow in return.

  I felt ashamed, but I didn’t know just why. I was just embarrassed. What Izaki said at the end—Just like you, the lad is a fine young man—had pierced my heart.

  My sister was silent the entire time until we left the hospital. I didn’t say anything either. We went out onto the street.

  After walking for a while, Keiko sighed and said, “Our grandfather was really a magnificent person.”

  “Definitely,” I replied. “I think so, too.”

  “I wonder if he ever got to meet Mom. Or if he got to see Grandma again.”

  “I don’t know. I can’t imagine he was on the front the entire time…”

  “Might we find out if we tried?”

  I had no idea.

  “I’m gonna seriously try,” Keiko said.

  “Hey, so you weren’t serious until now?”

  Keiko ignored me.

  We parted ways at the entrance to the subway since the trains we needed to take went in opposite directions.

  Before we parted, Keiko said, “I think Grandma was very happy to have been so loved by Grandfather Miyabe.” I saw her eyes filling with tears once again. But before I could come up with a reply, she said, “See ya,” and rushed down the stairs.

  I thought over what Keiko had said. Had Grandma really been happy? Was she loved by our grandfather and therefore happy?

  I couldn’t say.

  Chapter 6

  The Nude Photo

  “How’s the research coming along?”

  The day after we visited Izaki, my mother suddenly came home at dinnertime. I still hadn’t told her what we’d learned about our grandfather. Keiko had asked me not to until we had a better grasp of the full picture. I agreed that we should especially avoid telling her about any criticism of him just yet.

  However, I did tell her that I had met with three people in the past two weeks.

  “That many! And did any of them remember my father?” she asked, her voice betraying her nervousness.

  “Yeah, I learned all sorts of things. We’re planning on telling you all the details once we’ve sorted them out. But Grandfather Miyabe seems to have, um, really loved you and Grandma.”

  Her eyes lit up with joy.

  “Apparently, he told people that he couldn’t die, for his wife’s sake.”

  Mom pressed her lips together and looked up at the ceiling.

  I continued, “And well, they said that he was a fearsomely skilled pilot who valued his life almost to the point of being cowardly.”

  “What a contradictory personality.”

  “What I don’t understand is why someone who held his own life so dear joined the Navy in the first place. He even volunteered to become an aviator. Back then, flying was extremely dangerous, and many parents told their sons, ‘Anything other than an airman.’ ”

  “I don’t think it’s weird at all,” Mom said, putting her chopsticks aside and looking straight at me. “It was probably just the rashness of youth. When you’re a teenager, you’ve got an adventurous spirit and do all sorts of dangerous things without batting an eye. If anything, it makes me happy to think that a youth like him started to value his life for our sake after getting married. He must have loved my mother and me.”

  Her voice caught at the end, and I saw a shine in her eyes. I tried to avoid looking at her, focusing instead on stuffing rice into my mouth.

  “So the research is still ongoing?”

  “Yep, there are several other people who remember him.”

  “Why, that’s amazing.”

  It sure was. When we’d first started out on this project, I’d figured we’d be lucky to find even one person who remembered Kyuzo Miyabe. Yet we’d already met three. It almost felt like there was some mysterious force at work pulling strings behind the scenes to make things come together.

  “Please keep at it,” Mom said.

  After dinner, I went into my room and thought once again about Grandfather Miyabe. He’d been a total stranger to me just two weeks earlier, but I felt like he was now standing behind me like a shadow, as though I could turn around and catch sight of him.

  * * *

  —

  Three
days later, I met up with Keiko. We were heading to Wakayama to visit the home of a former Imperial Navy aviation maintenance chief petty officer. It was a weekday, and Keiko canceled a job just so she could make the trip.

  On the flight, I told Keiko what our mother had said a few days ago.

  “I see. A man who was a risk-taker in his youth realized he should value his life after he fell in love with Grandma. That’s wonderful.”

  I made a noncommittal noise in reply.

  “Does it sound off to you?” she asked me.

  “No, I understand how he might have come to value his life once he had Grandma. But him joining the military just because he was young and reckless? I’m not totally convinced.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think that fits the image I have of Kyuzo Miyabe. It seems out of character. But maybe that’s just my opinion. Heck, maybe he was just a gung-ho military youth.”

  “You don’t want him to have been a gung-ho military youth.”

  “To be honest about it, no. What Takayama-san from the newspaper said has been snagging at my mind.”

  Keiko was silent.

  “I wonder, was some part of him glad to be sacrificing his life for his country on his final mission as a kamikaze?”

  “I doubt it. I don’t think he was happy at all,” Keiko declared. Then she added in a more subdued tone, “I think Takayama-san has it wrong.”

  * * *

  —

  Once we landed at Kansai International Airport, we got on a train to Kokawa Station in Wakayama Prefecture.

  As soon as we emerged to the rotary outside, someone called out, “Are you the Saekis? I’m Nagai’s son.”

  This was a well-tanned fifty-something man in work overalls. He had gone out of his way to meet us at the station in his car.

  “My father told me about you. Coming all the way from Tokyo, you must be tired,” he said with a smile as he drove along. “Yes, come to think of it, my father experienced war. Now he’s a doddering old man, but amazingly enough, he fought against America when he was young. He said your grandfather was stationed with him at Rabaul?”