The Eternal Zero

by Naoki Hyakuta

  Both the chosen and the unchosen cried that night.

  * * *

  —

  Starting the next day, the chosen sixteen began flight training with high-octane aviation fuel, the type used in actual combat. They were, quite literally, training to die.

  Even so, Takahashi and the other reserve officers were magnificent.

  Being selected for a kamikaze unit was akin to being handed a death warrant. But those men never betrayed any hint of fear to the rest of us. They never even looked gloomy. If anything, they acted downright cheerful.

  Of course, that couldn’t have been a reflection of their true states. It was for us that they showed us smiles. Facing death and still considering the feelings of friends they’d be leaving behind—how amazing those men were.

  Their instructing officer was Miyabe-san. Of course, he was aware that Takahashi and others had been selected for special attack units.

  One day, in reference to Instructor Miyabe, Takahashi said to me, “He actually has a real heart, you know.”

  I asked him what he meant by that.

  “It’s just too painful for him to teach us, I can tell. It pains him to send us off to die.”

  “Really?”

  “And it’s painful for me to see him look so pained.”

  I told him what Instructor Miyabe had once said to me. Takahashi nodded in understanding. “That’s the sort of person he is,” my friend mumbled.

  Then he added, “It’s just a rumor, but I heard that he refused to become a kamikaze back in the Philippines.”

  That came as a surprise to me.

  “It’s probably true, too,” Takahashi said. “I really have a lot of respect for him.”

  There was nothing I could say.

  It was with a sad expression that my friend declared, “We’re wimps.”

  * * *

  —

  At the beginning of May, Takahashi and others headed to Kokubu Airfield in Kyushu. There weren’t enough planes, so of the sixteen chosen pilots, only eleven took off in Zero fighters. Instructor Miyabe would guide the formation.

  Before leaving, Takahashi told me, “So I’m off.” When I couldn’t manage a reply, he said, “Wipe that look off your face,” and gave me a big smile. His sunny expression was almost dazzling.

  Then he ran off towards the airstrip.

  I later learned that all eleven of the pilots who took off that day were dead within a month.

  Instructor Miyabe stayed at Kokubu and apparently sortied numerous times, as a fighter escort to special attack units. I’ve heard that he, himself, died as a kamikaze right before the end of the war.

  * * *

  —

  After that, I was transferred to Konoike Air Base in Ibaraki Prefecture where I became an Ohka pilot.

  Do you know about the Ohka, written with the characters for “sakura” and “flower”? They were rocket bombs piloted by humans.

  No, these weren’t airplanes. They were bombs, pure and simple. They couldn’t take off on their own, nor could they land. They couldn’t even turn, they just glided straight through the air. The Ohkas would be suspended underneath a Type 1 land-based attack bomber and then released towards a hostile ship—as human rockets.

  Amazing, isn’t it, that such inhumane weapons were even built.

  For the training, all we did was practice nose-dives. Swooping straight down towards the target from a high altitude was all there was to it. We used Zeros to practice diving.

  We got just one practice flight in an Ohka. Since they didn’t come equipped with landing gear, they were fitted with skids instead. After diving at a terrifying speed from a high altitude, you leveled out close to the ground then touched down on the runway. If you successfully landed, you were given an “A” grade, listed as an Ohka pilot, and shipped off to Kyushu with no time to spare.

  Hm? What if you failed to land properly? You died.

  Many pilots met that fate. Some couldn’t pull out of the dive and go into level flight, some overshot the runway and crashed into the embankment, some had broken skids and burst into flames from the friction, some simply crashed because the rocket propulsion mechanism had malfunctioned…

  That training was beyond terrifying. I went through it. I’ll never forget the fear.

  I went weak at the knees when I had to transfer from the mother plane to the Ohka. The Type 1’s belly opened up, and in the face of wind pressure strong enough to blow me away, I had to jump into the cockpit of the Ohka suspended underneath. Of course, there was no lifeline or anything like that. If some accident or malfunction occurred and the Ohka fell, I would be a goner.

  But that fear was nothing compared to what I felt when I went into the dive. The instant the Ohka was cut loose from the mother plane, it fell about 300 meters at an incredible speed. The powerful negative g-force made all the blood in my body race to my head. It felt ready to pop open. My guts felt like they were being squeezed out of my mouth. Doing my best not to lose consciousness, I had to pull the control stick with all my might, aiming the gliding rocket towards the airfield. Once close to the ground, I had to pull even harder to bring the rocket into level flight. This caused yet another unimaginably intense g-force, and my vision blacked out briefly. I felt like I was on the verge of passing out. It’s possible that my friends who’d failed to pull out of the dive had in fact fainted at that point. The Ohka landed with a tremendous impact, like my whole body had been slammed against the pavement.

  I’ve lived for eighty years, but I have never experienced anything more terrifying than that. Of course, the fear of the kamikazes who actually crashed into enemy ships must have been even greater.

  In July, I was transferred to Omura Base in Nagasaki as an Ohka pilot. By then the military bases at Kagoshima, Miyazaki, and other areas in southern Kyushu had suffered damage from air raids and were barely functional. They were being used exclusively as staging grounds for kamikaze missions.

  I thought I actually saw Instructor Miyabe at Omura, but I don’t remember whether or not we spoke. My memory of those days is hazy like it was all some dream. I do recall that each morning that my name was not on the list of pilots selected for that day’s mission, I felt I had been given an extra day to live.

  Fortunately, the war ended before I was ordered to sortie.

  How did I feel when the war ended? I was certainly relieved. But at the same time, I felt like I hadn’t made it in time. I felt guilty that I alone had survived and that I couldn’t ever face my many friends who hadn’t.

  Those feelings never faded—they still haven’t, even now.

  * * *

  —

  Silence reigned over us. Cicadas buzzed in the distance.

  “Whoever invented the Ohka was a monster!” Keiko said in a tear-choked voice.

  Okabe nodded deeply. “Part of the base at Konoike where we trained is now a memorial park, Kashima Ohka Park. They say there’s even a real one on display there. But I never want to see another Ohka as long as I live.”

  “I can understand that,” I said.

  “But about ten years ago I saw one by accident. On a trip to America, I saw one on display at the Smithsonian. It was suspended from the ceiling. I remember being stunned to see just how small it was. What was even more shocking was to see what they called it. Do you know what they called it? The ‘Baka’ Bomb.”

  “ ‘Baka’ Bomb?” my sister parroted.

  “Yes, the Idiot Bomb. Even though my son and his wife were standing right next to me, I wept out loud. I was so mortified, so miserable…No matter how long I cried, the tears just wouldn’t stop. But in fact, ‘idiot’ was the perfect term. The kamikaze tactic cooked up by the insane Japanese military was truly the most idiotic battle plan in the history of the world. That wasn’t the only reason for my tears, though. I just felt so sorry, so very sorry for
Takahashi and all the others who had died in such an idiotic operation.”

  Okabe’s face suddenly crumpled, and tears spilled from his eyes. His vexation and regret began to affect me. I was pretty shocked by “baka” too, as if they were putting down my grandfather as an idiot.

  “Over 150 Ohka pilots died as part of the Divine Thunder Unit, formed around the Ohkas, and a total of 800 men for the unit as a whole. The crew of the Type 1 bombers that ferried the Ohkas are included in that number.”

  “So the mother planes were shot down too?”

  “Exactly,” Okabe replied. “An Ohka weighed two tons. With that kind of freight the Type 1 planes flied so slowly that they were practically asking to be shot down. The Ohka’s range was at best 30 kilometers, and there wasn’t one chance in a hundred for the mother planes to break through the enemy’s line of interceptors to within 30 kilometers of their warships. Whoever invented the Ohka was totally ignorant of the realities of aerial warfare.

  “The first Ohka attack was launched in March of ’45 with eighteen Type 1 bombers hauling fifteen Ohkas, and every last aircraft was shot down by American fighters. The leader of the Divine Thunder Unit, Lieutenant Commander Goro Nonaka, thoroughly opposed such an imprudent operation, but his superior, Admiral Matome Ugaki, overruled him. Lieutenant Commander Nonaka then asked for a fighter escort of seventy Zeros, but was only allotted thirty. He couldn’t bring himself to send off his subordinates alone on a mission that was nearly impossible to survive, so he led the formation himself.”

  “Ahhh,” my sister voiced.

  “Everyone who knew Lt. Cdr. Nonaka has said that he was a truly wonderful superior. He was a big-hearted man who cared very much for his troops and liked to say, ‘C’mon guys, let’s give ‘r a go!’ His unit was referred to as the Nonaka Family, and his men loved him like he was their daddy.”

  “He sounds like an extraordinary person.”

  “Given his position he didn’t need to sortie. He participated in that mission because he couldn’t stand by idly as his men went to their deaths, but possibly also to impress upon his superiors that it was an idiotic idea.”

  “He was a true officer.”

  Okabe nodded. “But even though the Nonaka Family was utterly wiped out, the Divide Thunder Unit sortied with Ohkas many more times after that. As could be expected, almost none of them ever managed to reach the enemy ships and were shot down along with their mother planes. And thus the unit saw a staggering eight hundred casualties.”

  Silence reigned among the three of us again. After a while, Keiko said, “Okabe-san, how were you able to accept being in a special attack unit?”

  “What do you mean by ‘accept’?”

  “How were you able to accept your own death, in the context of a special attack?”

  “That’s a tough question.” Okabe folded his arms.

  “I think it’s impossible to accept one’s death in the absence of some sublime purpose that transcends it. Okabe-san, what was that sublime purpose in your case?”

  Keiko’s question was unexpected. It might have been something she’d prepared in advance.

  Okabe was silent for a while, but he finally opened his mouth. “This might sound like I am just trying to put up a good front, but I thought that I would gladly offer up my life if my dying could protect my family.”

  “Did you really think that by dying you could keep your family safe?”

  Okabe stared at Keiko. “Are you trying to say that the kamikazes died in vain?”

  “Not at all,” Keiko said, shaking her head hastily.

  “Okay, then may I change the subject somewhat?” he asked.

  “Please do, sir.”

  “America is a free country that values the lives of its citizens more than any other nation. Yet the same America fought against Nazi Germany in World War II in order to protect that freedom. In 1943, B-17 bombers were deployed numerous times to bomb the Germans’ war plants, in broad daylight with no fighter escort. They didn’t have a fighter escort because back then America didn’t have fighters capable of flying such long distances. And they carried out the raid in broad daylight because they wouldn’t be able to sight the plants at night.”

  “I follow you, sir.”

  “This was a very dangerous mission. On each sortie, the B-17s met with intense resistance from the Luftwaffe, and each time more than forty percent of the bombers failed to return. They say no aircrew survived four missions. Even so, in order to defeat Hitler and Nazism, the American military continued the daylight raids. And the American pilots bravely flew into German airspace. Over five thousand B-17 crewmembers were killed in action. That’s actually a thousand more than our Special Attack Force dead.”

  “That many?”

  “Such is war. Just as the Americans risked their lives fighting so their homeland could claim victory, we too put our lives on the line. Even if we were to die, we didn’t think it was meaningless as long as we were protecting our homeland and our families. We went into battle believing that to be true. I know that you who were born and raised in the peaceful postwar era can’t possibly comprehend what that was like, but we really believed that as we fought. Otherwise, how could anyone go to his death as a kamikaze? How could anyone give his life if he thought his death would have no meaning or value? I’d rather die first than tell my late friends, ‘Your deaths were in vain.’ ”

  Keiko was silent. An oppressive tension filled the room. Okabe was the one to break it.

  “Even so, I disapprove of the special attacks. I absolutely disapprove,” he said in a very firm tone. “There was no hope of surviving a kamikaze mission. While the American B-17 bombers had a huge number of casualties, there was still a chance that they would make it back alive, which allowed them to be courageous. It wasn’t an operation that was guaranteed to kill them.

  “This is what I heard from someone after the war, but Fifth Air Fleet Commander Matome Ugaki, who had advocated for all planes to become kamikazes, went to each of the special attack pilots before they sortied and shook their hands, weeping as he spoke words of encouragement. And then he asked, ‘Does anyone have any questions?’ A veteran aviator who had served since Midway took up the offer and said, ‘If I score a hit on an enemy ship with my bomb, am I allowed to return, sir?’ Fleet Commander Ugaki had the gall to tell him, ‘No, you don’t.’ ”

  “What?” I said, unable to check my disbelief.

  “That’s the truth about the special attacks. The tactic wasn’t about winning. Pilots hurling themselves at the enemy was its very purpose. And by the latter half of the Battle of Okinawa, volunteering was out—they simply ordered you to do it.”

  Chapter 9

  Kamikaze Attack

  We met Former Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade Takanori Takeda at a hotel in Shirogane, Tokyo. He had reserved a hotel room just for our meeting.

  What I found surprising was that Takeda had been the president of a large corporation that even I knew about, one listed in the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Keiko, too, said that she had heard his name before. He had been a student at Tokyo University when he had joined the flight student reservists, and after the war he had gone back to college, gone on to graduate school, and then joined a company. He had served in the vanguard of Japan’s postwar economic recovery.

  Initially, I felt it was a bit strange that a former kamikaze pilot would turn into a corporate bigwig. But in terms of Takeda’s own career, it seemed that the short year-plus he’d spent in the Navy was the exception to the rule.

  My sister and I were supposed to meet up in the lobby before going to his room, but Keiko emailed saying she was running late.

  I phoned up to Takeda’s room. Soon thereafter, he and his wife came down to the lobby.

  “I’m Takeda,” the man said in a firm voice. He was tall, with white hair and a matching moustache above his lip. “Dan
dy” would have been an appropriate description, and he looked far younger than an octogenarian.

  “I’m Kentaro Saeki, Kyuzo Miyabe’s grandson. My sister’s running late, I’m afraid. Thank you very much for going to the trouble of reserving a hotel room, sir.”

  “Oh, it was nothing. It just happened to overlap with a getaway we’d already planned. We haven’t gotten out of the house for a while, so this was a perfect opportunity for us.” Takeda glanced at his wife and laughed. “Why don’t we have some tea or something while we wait for your sister?”

  We went into the lounge area, sat at a table, and were placing our orders just as Keiko arrived—surprisingly, with Takayama in tow.

  “Takayama-san said he was really interested in hearing what you have to say, sir. So he was hoping to join us today.”

  Takeda, instead of replying, turned to look at me.

  “That’s going to be a problem, Keiko,” I said. “This is a private discussion. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Takayama-san.”

  Keiko looked troubled, but I was not going to bend on this point even if she begged.

  “It’s fine. Please, have a seat,” Takeda said.

  “Much obliged, sir,” Takayama said with a polite bow of his head. He sat down, then handed a business card to Takeda and introduced himself.

  “A reporter,” Takeda muttered as he read the business card. His expression briefly clouded over.

  “This isn’t an interview. I simply wish to be present during a personal discussion, if you’d please be so kind.” Takayama bowed deeply.

  Takeda nodded silently. “We’ll talk later, in our room.”

  Takayama and Keiko placed their drink orders with the waiter.

  “However, as I said on the phone, I will not discuss myself or the kamikaze units. I will only discuss my memories of Kyuzo Miyabe,” Takeda said, adding milk to his black tea.