The Eternal Zero

by Naoki Hyakuta

  “They should have been dismissed from the civil service.”

  “Or worse. Thanks to their screw-up, Japanese suffered the unbearable stigma of being ‘a race of people who stoop to vile sneak attacks.’ That was huge, you know? About America having dropped the atomic bomb, for instance, there are views that ‘those vile Japanese got exactly what they deserved.’ After 9/11, their mass media compared the terrorist attacks to Pearl Harbor, or so I’ve heard. Yet not one of the embassy higher-ups was held accountable for an inexcusable failure that besmirched Japan as a country. A certain career diplomat even tried to pin the blame on a non-career telegraph worker who had, in fact, offered to stay overnight. The very same man who’d said, ‘That won’t be necessary’ and sent him home turned around after the war and tried to blame it on the poor fellow.”

  Keiko sighed.

  “So in the end, not only did the high-ranking diplomats all wash their hands of the whole matter, but a few of them went on to become the ministry’s undersecretary after the war. Had they been thoroughly taken to task back then, we might have avoided the ‘vile race’ stigma and won back some honor. Americans might have said, ‘Ah, so it wasn’t meant to be undeclared.’ But even to this day, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs hasn’t officially admitted its error, and globally speaking, people still think of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor as a sneak attack.”

  Keiko pressed her hands to her forehead. “Just what sort of country is Japan, anyway?”

  I had no answer for such a question. I’m sure she wasn’t really expecting one. I said, “Learning about the military and some bureaucrats back then puts me into a dark mood, but nameless people gave it their all as always. I think this country was and is carried on their backs. I think the NCOs and enlisted men truly fought hard. Setting aside whether fighting well in a war is such a good thing, they carried out their duties to the fullest.”

  “They all fought as best they could for the sake of the country.” Keiko turned to look out the window into the darkness outside. Her reflection in the glass showed a grim expression. With a sigh she said, “I think Hasegawa-san, who’d lost his arm, understandably felt some deep-seated resentment.”

  “He couldn’t bear a grudge towards his country, so he must have transferred it onto our grandfather instead.”

  “I’m sure people were very cold to him, too. Far from expressing gratitude to him for his sacrifices, they might have seen his having lost an arm as just punishment for a career soldier.”

  I nodded. “So forgive him for speaking ill of Grandfather Miyabe.”

  “I know.” Keiko cracked a small smile, but then her expression darkened again. “At any rate, the higher-ups in the Japanese military really thought of the troops as nothing more than tools.”

  “And the prime example of that was the kamikazes.”

  I imagined my grandfather’s chagrin and closed my eyes.

  Chapter 8

  Cherry Blossoms

  A few days later, I called my sister’s cell. “Hey, I just got in touch with someone who was in a kamikaze unit.”

  Keiko made a surprised sound.

  “He says he knew Grandfather,” I added.

  But her response was wholly unexpected. She didn’t want to come.

  “Why not?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Don’t you want to hear from someone who was actually in one?”

  “I do. But then again, I can’t bear listening to more sad stories about our grandfather,” she fumed. “I did some research on the kamikazes on my own. It was so painful that I had to stop reading.”

  “I understand.”

  “The former kamikaze guy might talk about when Grandfather was sent out. I won’t be able to take it. I mean, can you sit there calmly if he does, Kentaro?”

  “Well, of course it’d be hard for me to hear,” I said. “But I feel like there’s something at work that’s bringing us together. This person called Kyuzo Miyabe, who went unknown for sixty years, is beginning to show himself to me now.”

  I heard Keiko swallow her breath.

  “I think it’s something of a miracle. I can’t help but feel like it was a turn of the wheel of fortune that we started this research project now, just when all those people who fought in the war are departing from the stage of history. Had it been even five years later, I think Kyuzo Miyabe would have quietly passed into time. That’s why I feel like I ought to hear from everyone who once knew him.”

  After a moment, Keiko said, “Gee, you’ve really changed, Kentaro.”

  “I do see how you might find it too painful. It’s not like I don’t feel that way at all. Anyway, I’ll go by myself this time.”

  Keiko fell silent.

  * * *

  —

  “Have you said yes to Takayama-san yet?” I asked my sister, who was in the passenger’s seat as I drove along. Former Ensign Masao Okabe’s house was located in Narita, Chiba Prefecture, a little east of Tokyo, so I’d borrowed Mom’s car.

  “Not yet, but I’m planning on saying yes.” The day before, Keiko had called to say that she’d changed her mind and that she’d come after all.

  After turning onto the expressway I said, “Weren’t you actually in love with Fujiki-san, sis?”

  Keiko looked at me in astonishment.

  “I can tell you this now. Totally by accident, I saw you crying next to him that one time.”

  Keiko didn’t say anything. A gulf of silence opened up between us. I turned up the A/C.

  “Can you listen without laughing at me? It’s true, I had a crush on Fujiki-san. My dream was that he’d pass the bar exam and marry me. So it was a shock when I heard that he was giving up on the bar and moving back home. I had just gotten a job, so I begged him not to leave.”

  “Were you two seeing each other?”

  She shook her head. “We’d never even held hands, he’d never confessed any feelings for me, and we’d never gone out on a date. So we weren’t lovers or anything.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that my tears were my confession of love.” Keiko gave a slightly sad smile. “But he left. And he never asked me to go with him or to wait for him.”

  Of course not. Fujiki would never, I thought. He wasn’t the type to demand that of her when it was clear that his life wouldn’t be rosy.

  “Do you regret it?”

  “Regret? Why would I? I think I made the right decision. I’m glad he didn’t ask me to move with him to the countryside. I was just a kid back then, so I might have turned down my job offer and gone with him.” She laughed out loud at that. “Did you know that his ironworks is doing pretty poorly?”

  I nodded.

  “If I’d married him, I’d have struggled terribly.” She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her handbag and lit one.

  I was a little surprised. “You’ve started smoking?”

  “Never in front of Mom, though.” She cracked the window, letting in a stream of hot air. “By the way, Fujiki-san called me yesterday. He asked me to marry him.”

  For a moment this didn’t even register.

  “I wrote him a letter recently, saying that I might get married. The first letter I’d ever written to him. Ten days later, he called me.”

  “What the hell are you thinking?!” I shouted at her.

  She flinched in shock. I realized I was coming up fast on the car ahead of me and hurriedly slammed on the brakes.

  “Are you just trying to get revenge on him for leaving you?”

  “I’m not thinking about revenge at all. I just wanted to get closure. Stop yelling at me and watch the darn road!”

  “And how did you answer him?!”

  “I turned him down, of course.”

  I moved into the passing lane and stepped on the gas. Keiko fell quiet. I though
t about how Fujiki must be feeling, and my chest tightened.

  Neither of us spoke a word again until we turned off the expressway.

  * * *

  —

  Former Ensign Masao Okabe had served four terms as a member of Chiba’s prefectural assembly. Before that, he had spent many years on the prefecture’s board of education. When I first learned of his career, I was surprised that a former kamikaze had become an assemblyman. But on further thought, it wasn’t the slightest bit strange. Back then, all young men had served in the military, and most of those who bore postwar Japan on their shoulders were former soldiers. So it wasn’t so bizarre that there were former kamikazes among them.

  Okabe lived in a quiet residential neighborhood in Narita. His was a small, snug house, not at all what one might expect of a former four-term prefectural assemblyman.

  “Pretty ordinary house,” Keiko said, echoing my thoughts.

  I pressed the buzzer to the side of the doorway. The door immediately opened, revealing the face of an elderly man of small stature.

  The ex-kamikaze was totally bald. He smiled broadly, giving a very affable impression. I had pictured a more imposing man since he’d been a local politician, and I felt silly for having been on guard.

  * * *

  —

  “My wife is at the community center teaching flower arrangement today, so I can’t really offer you much,” Okabe said as he led us into a Japanese-style room. “We’re just two old folks living here, so I’m not too sure what I should serve to you young people.” He brought out some cider.

  “Please, don’t trouble yourself, sir,” I said.

  I couldn’t reconcile the image of a kamikaze pilot with the diminutive old man seated before us. But to be fair, I hadn’t really had any set image in my mind as to what a kamikaze should look like.

  “Miyabe-san was a truly outstanding instructor,” Okabe suddenly started in.

  “By ‘instructor’ you mean?”

  “An instructor at an air training unit. Even though they were all teaching us, officers were called ‘instructing officers’ and NCOs were called ‘instructing staff.’ The military was very stratified, even in ways like that.”

  “I didn’t know that our grandfather had worked as an instructor.”

  “Miyabe-san came to teach at the Tsukuba Air Training Unit at the start of 1945.”

  * * *

  —

  I was a flight student reservist. Student reservists were basically officers who came from colleges. The Imperial Navy had previously accepted a small number of student reservists, but starting in 1943 they sought a large number of us.

  Unlike nowadays, not everyone was able to attend college. I doubt even one out of a hundred did. College students were members of an exclusive elite, which is why the military didn’t try to force us into service at first. But by ’43, the progress of the war had taken a turn for the worse, and they couldn’t be so lenient. That was the year we were defeated at Guadalcanal and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was killed.

  Collegians and high school students of the old system who had until then been exempted from conscription were drafted under the student mobilization order. Except for those majoring in the sciences, all college students were now subject to the draft. I thought then that Japan had entered an age where every citizen was a soldier.

  Many of us college students had been uncomfortable about our deferrals. We wondered whether it was really appropriate for us to be cooling our heels in class while soldiers our age were out there dying every day. Of course there were some who had enrolled in college specifically to escape military service. For instance, some professional baseball players enrolled in night classes to avoid the draft. But most college students didn’t relish their privileged status.

  The first student mobilization in 1943 produced over a hundred thousand student soldiers. They said that colleges across the country had gone empty. In October, a send-off rally for the newly tapped students was held at Meiji Jingu Gaien Stadium. As a cool rain fell, fifty thousand female students saw off a procession of half as many student troops.

  Ah, the irony of fate. Most of the pilots in the special attack units were selected from that year’s recruits. This was because both the Navy and the Army selected a great number of flight trainees from the student pool.

  Piloting an aircraft isn’t as easy as driving a car. There are many things one must learn before ever getting into the cockpit. And so, before the war, the pilots in training and those who attended the flight prep program were all brilliant kids who’d passed highly competitive exams. The military believed that the air corps required such standout personnel. Since college students had a wealth of knowledge and high intelligence, we offered some fine material to quickly dress up as pilots. Thus, after intensive training, we became for-kamikaze aviators. Over 4,400 men died as kamikazes, and nearly half of them were flight student reservists.

  Those chosen to become pilots from among the students culled that year, the 13th class of reservists, would make up the bulk of the IJN’s special attack units. I belonged to the 14th class, mobilized the following year. Many members of my class, too, were selected to become kamikazes.

  * * *

  —

  By the way, the generally accepted story is that the first kamikaze unit was Lieutenant Seki’s Shikishima Unit deployed at Leyte Gulf, but, in fact, the very first one was Lieutenant Junior Grade Kofu Kuno of the Yamato Unit, also formed for Leyte. Lieutenant Kuno came from the 11th class of student reservists.

  Lt. Seki’s Shikishima Unit struck on October 25th, but Lt. Kuno’s Yamato Unit made its charge on the 21st. On that day, both units failed to make contact with the enemy and all aircraft turned back, except Lt. Kuno, who kept flying and searching for the enemy and never returned to base.

  So in truth Lt. Kuno was the very first kamikaze, but he was never honored as such. Partly because they couldn’t confirm his results; another major reason was that he’d been a reserve officer. The Navy naturally wanted the credit of “first kamikaze” bestowed on a Naval Academy graduate, so they announced that Lt. Seki had become the first kamikaze. This fact should make it pretty clear how much they valued their own academy’s officers and made light of us student reservists.

  Even so, a great number of reservists of the 13th and 14th classes were turned into aviators for special attack purposes.

  It was rare for a veteran pilot to be sent out as a kamikaze. In the Philippines theater in 1944, a number of seasoned pilots were ordered to become kamikazes, but that no longer happened in the Battle of Okinawa the following year. Because most of the old guard who had served since the start of the war had died out by that point, highly skilled veteran pilots had become precious to the military.

  The battle-tested aviators mostly defended the mainland or deployed to escort the kamikazes. Either that or they served as flight instructors. As I’ve said many times, it was the expendable student reservists and boy pilots from the prep program who were picked to be kamikazes.

  * * *

  —

  I became a flight student reservist in May of 1944, as a member of the 14th class. Lieutenant Seki’s Shikishima Unit’s deployment would come half a year later. But I’m sure the Navy was already seriously considering the option of using special attack units at that point. I think they had already decided to use the 13th and 14th classes as kamikaze pilots. But of course, we had no way of knowing.

  We weren’t taught anything about dogfighting or bombing methods, probably because such lessons would have been completely pointless given that all we were meant to do was load ourselves up with explosives and crash into enemy ships.

  Flight training was incredibly rigorous. Since we had to complete training that normally took two or three years in less than one year, both instructors and students were frantic. The military wanted us students to be able to fly as soon as possi
ble for use as kamikazes.

  But the instructing staff were non-commissioned officers, and they were very conscientious. Since a cadet’s status fell between commissioned officers and non-comms, we outranked most of our teachers. Once we completed training, we were immediately made ensigns, that is to say, commissioned officers, even without any actual experience in battle. For a rank-and-file enlisted serviceman to rise to commissioned status took over a decade. When you stop to think about it, that was pretty irrational.

  In the flight training units, too, the student reservists had a higher rank than most of those who taught them, which was definitely awkward for both sides. I think the instructing staff felt they had to stand on ceremony with us. Even if they wanted to be strict or stern, the difference in rank prevented them from doing so. But in any case, we were being trained for use in kamikaze attacks, so perhaps it wouldn’t have made any difference.

  Meanwhile, ignorant of our fates as kamikazes, we threw ourselves into the training, wanting to become full-fledged pilots as soon as we could. We were chafing to go off and shoot enemy aircraft out of the sky. How ludicrous.

  We learned of Shikishima Unit’s fate in October of ’44. And after that we heard news of continuous launches of special attack units in the Philippines, which made us begin to wonder if we were to follow in their footsteps.

  * * *

  —

  Miyabe-san arrived as an instructing officer towards the end of our training period. I believe it was in the beginning of 1945.

  I clearly remember my first impression of him like it was only yesterday. His whole being gave off a strange sort of aura. There were several members of the Tsukuba Air Unit that had transferred there from the front lines, and, having survived many life-or-death situations, they all seemed intimidating. Miyabe-san, too, had that special air about him.