The Eternal Zero

by Naoki Hyakuta

  That day, we had to fend off attacks from 30 B-17s and about 150 Grummans. Forty Zeros went up to intercept them. We were overwhelmingly outnumbered, but we had the advantage of fighting above our own base.

  They began bombing from an altitude of 3,000 meters. We assaulted the enemy aircraft after they had finished, and the Grummans tried to prevent us. I dropped down, feigning to escape, inviting the enemy to pursue me. One took the bait. I immediately pulled up and engaged him in a dogfight. He was right on my six o’clock. I made a sharp turn and ended up behind him. In a panic, he dove down and tried to break away—just what I had hoped for. I fired my 20-mm cannons towards the direction he was fleeing. He flew right into the stream of my bullets, as if drawn there. Yellow flames spouted from his plane. I caught a glimpse of the pilot parachuting away, then immediately sought out my next target.

  I saw two of our birds attacking a B-17. I pulled up and headed in their direction, not to aid in their assault but to pick off a Grumman that was attacking the Zeros.

  I flew up behind the Grumman, which was bathing a Zero from the rear with bullets, and opened fire with both my 20-mm and 7.7-mm guns. The Grumman fell away, but so did the Zero under attack. The B-17, meanwhile, escaped.

  The interception lasted for just over ten minutes. The many large ripples on the surface of the ocean far below indicated where aircraft had crashed. I couldn’t tell which side had taken greater casualties.

  There were no friendlies around me.

  Then, just as I was about to head back to Rabaul, I spotted a single Zero below me. It was Miyabe’s. I made my decision.

  I immediately went into a dive and came up behind him. At about 1,000 meters, I fired at his plane. There was no chance of hitting him at that distance. It was merely my way of signaling that I wanted to start a mock dogfight.

  Miyabe nosed up and turned towards me. For a split second, we were facing each other, but our planes were too close. We passed by one another and quickly put 2,000 meters between us. Then we both made wide turns and faced each other again, understanding each other without words.

  Miyabe had responded to the mock battle challenge. We were at the same altitude, so this would be an even match.

  We both closed the distance. I made a wide left turn, attempting to get behind him. He made a similar turn. Our aircraft drew closer and closer together as we chased each other. This was a proper dogfight, as the nickname comes from two dogs going in circles, nipping at each other’s tails.

  We both dipped our wings down, continuing to turn sharply. We twisted through the air like pestles sliding inside a mortar. I felt an immense g-force all over my body, like my innards and eyeballs were being crushed. If you’ve never experienced the pain of g-forces, I’m sure it’s very difficult to understand. It’s so intense you feel like you’re dying. Just imagine large stones weighing several hundred kilos on top of your body, if that makes sense. If you haven’t built up your dorsal and abdominal muscles, it can snap your spine. Your facial muscles are yanked backwards, making you look inhuman. Your eyeballs are forcefully pushed back, making your eye sockets look sunken, like a bare skull. Your field of vision narrows sharply, like you’re looking down the wrong end of a telescope. The instant you cry uncle to the anguish of the g-force, you’ve lost the battle.

  Even if this was just a mock dogfight, I was determined not to stop turning. I didn’t care if I died. I screamed out in pain, but I kept my eyes fixed on Miyabe above the crown of my head and didn’t ease up on the control stick even by an inch.

  Suddenly he stopped turning and transitioned into level flight. Damn, I win! I thought, and turned onto his tail. His plane was slowly drawing towards my crosshairs, but then in the next instant he went into a loop. To pull a loop from an inferior position and at reduced speed like that was akin to suicide. I followed him. I kept my eyes locked on him overhead as I pulled on the stick. The moment I came out of the loop, he’d be right in my sights. Then his life would be in my hands…

  Then the unbelievable happened. His plane had vanished. Not only was he not in my sights, he was nowhere to be seen in my entire range of vision.

  As I continued to loop, I turned and twisted my head, looking for him. His aircraft was gone. I instinctively went into a steep dive. It was then that I felt a chill shudder down my spine, and I turned around to look—he was right behind me.

  I can’t forget the shock I felt at that moment, even now. After the war, I got into many fights where my life was at stake, and it wasn’t just once or twice that I thought I was a goner. But I never again felt the fear that I experienced back then with Miyabe.

  He was so close that our planes were nearly touching. He didn’t need his gun sights or anything. All he had to do was pull the trigger and my Zero would be blown away. He’d won, no question about it. I felt like I was about to lose my mind. I was in a state of panic, to use a foreign word as we’ve come to do.

  After he saw me turn around and look at him, he increased his speed and pulled up alongside me, then passed me by. Just then, his plane entered my sights. It happened in the blink of an eye.

  I pulled the damn trigger…

  * * *

  —

  I won’t make excuses for myself.

  I did something that one must never do. It was as though, after fighting a kendo match with bamboo swords and losing, I had cut down my opponent with a real sword the minute his back was turned.

  I hated him. And he had thoroughly beaten me. Did I leap without thinking at the first opportunity to shoot him down? It would be a fair accusation. I have to accept the label of “coward” if you wish to call me that.

  But what really stunned me was what happened the next moment. The tracer bullets that I had fired arced away as if spooked by his plane, which was in my sights. I felt like I was trapped in a nightmare. Had I been dragged into some sorcerous realm? Was he a demon?

  He rapidly swung through the air and once again came up behind me. I didn’t turn around this time. I didn’t even think about trying to escape. I wanted to be shot down by Miyabe. From the second I fired on him, my life no longer had any value, whatsoever. I would have been perfectly satisfied with him shooting me down. It was my dream to die at the hands of a true fighter pilot. It didn’t matter whether the pilot was American or Japanese.

  But Miyabe didn’t open fire.

  “Shoot, damn it!” I yelled. “Fire! Shoot me!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

  Once I realized that he had no intention of doing so, I banked hard then dropped into a dive. My only choice was to blow myself up in that case. Yet once again something incredible occurred. Miyabe raced ahead of me, cutting across my flight path. I had to turn sharply in order to avoid a collision. He opened up his windshield and signaled with his hand to stop.

  As soon as I saw his signal, I lost the will to blow myself up. From my cockpit I signed back, “Roger.” Self-destructing in such a way was for cowards. I would go back to the airfield, confess to everyone in the unit that I had fired on Miyabe, and then commit seppuku. I had no intention of apologizing to him; it wasn’t the sort of thing that could be settled with a simple apology. What would saying “sorry” accomplish? Instead I meant to go ahead and express my feelings by disemboweling myself.

  After touching down on the runway and climbing down from the cockpit, I was heading towards the command post when Miyabe, who had landed after me, came running up.

  “Listen, don’t tell anyone. That’s an order!” he said, a ferocious expression on his face. “You fired on me, but I’m still alive. So there’s nothing to report.” Then he added, “Don’t throw your life away.”

  He understood. He understood everything I was feeling. My resolve to commit suicide wilted in my heart. And I didn’t die.

  Do you think me a coward? I think my grandfather would have done it—sliced a cross into his abdomen, without relying on an aide to cut o
ff his head, either. So why did I not go through with it?

  Because I felt like he still held my life in his hands.

  * * *

  —

  And what was that damn maneuver he had pulled?

  The answer came to me immediately: a left-turn corkscrew loop, a move considered a secret technique among the Imperial Navy’s fighter pilots. With an aircraft locked on your tail, you quickly kicked in hard left rudder at the peak of your loop and got on the other aircraft’s tail.

  I’d heard about it a number of times back in training, but none of our instructors could do it. One of them had seen it just once, though. A seasoned pilot serving since the Sino-Japanese War had pulled it off in a mock battle. “His plane vanished into thin air. It was like a magic trick.” The instructor had also said, “Virtually none of the Naval Air Corps’ surviving pilots can do it.”

  Miyabe had pulled that very same maneuver on me. The technique was truly divine. I could scarcely believe airplanes could actually move in such a way.

  But what surprised me even more was what had happened next. I’d had him squarely in my sights, yet my bullets had missed. Again, I soon figured out why—my plane had been slipping.

  It’s difficult to explain. Basically, he wasn’t flying straight forward.

  The first thing we pilots learn is how to fly straight and level. Beginners will typically have their aircraft inadvertently angled to one side. That’s referred to as “slipping,” and it gets thoroughly hammered out of flight students before anything else. It’s a basic part of flying. If your aircraft is slipping, then there’s no way your bullets will strike their target. A bomber’s bombs will absolutely miss, too, and so will a torpedo attacker’s torpedo. So straight and level flight is drilled into your head.

  When he had cut ahead of me, Miyabe had purposely made his aircraft slip. I’d instinctively jumped on his tail. But when I chased directly after him, inadvertently I was slipping as well.

  Do you see? My plane is right behind his. Two Zeros lined up one behind the other as they fly. Yet in fact both aircraft are sliding together. I opened fire under such conditions. And of course, the bullets arced away.

  He hadn’t gone in front of me by accident. He’d tested me.

  I realized then how he had managed to survive from Pearl Harbor up to that point. There was no way the Americans could shoot down a pilot with such skills. It was as though he was an Asura, a fighting demon.

  I was knocked flat by an immense sense of defeat. Not only had I lost the dogfight, I had failed his test, too. When I put it all together, a black rage swirled within my heart. I swore that one day I would shoot him down. That night, in the pitch darkness of my room, I envisioned his aircraft spewing flames and falling from the sky.

  America, Japan, none of that mattered to me. My enemies were each and every fighter pilot. I wanted to become a pilot who was second to none. That was my dream, my deepest desire. I know I’ve already said this, but I was not afraid of death at all. If I exhausted every effort in combat and then was shot down, that’d be sheer joy, far cleaner than dying in an air-raid shelter or from an illness like malaria or dengue fever. And I certainly didn’t want to grow old and become decrepit. Wouldn’t you agree?

  And yet I wasn’t able to die in the sky. After the war, I found myself fighting for my life numerous times. I never once feared death. My body is covered in scars from sword cuts and bullets. Perhaps the Grim Reaper forsook me, and I wasn’t able to die. I never thought I’d live to such an old age.

  This young man here with me was sent by the syndicate brass as a form of training and also, apparently, to act as my bodyguard. I wish they’d just mind their own business. I’m ready to give up my life anytime. But if I did, there’d be another unnecessary conflict. That’s why I keep him by my side.

  * * *

  —

  I lost to Miyabe once. But it wasn’t a true defeat because he didn’t shoot me down. I didn’t really lose. Do you think that’s just a convenient rationalization? If so, you’d be incorrect. This isn’t about logic. He didn’t have it in him to kill me.

  From that day on, my life became dear to me. I was afraid of dying in vain. That was the only time in my many years that I valued my own life. Until the day that I could shoot down Miyabe’s aircraft, I absolutely had to live. I couldn’t go off and die with that business left unfinished. My dream was to fight Miyabe and turn his fuselage into Swiss cheese with my guns and swat him down.

  I couldn’t actually do that, of course. So instead, I wished to outlive Miyabe. I was determined to hear one day that he’d been shot down by unfriendlies, and then I would laugh at him. That would be my moment of victory.

  He died. I won.

  Does saying that make you hate me? If you do, you’ve got it all wrong. He died a kamikaze. It’s not like I killed him.

  * * *

  —

  The aviators of the Rabaul Air Corps were soon called back to the interior. All of us were being reassigned. I was separated from Miyabe.

  This sounds strange, but I thought to myself, Don’t die yet, Miyabe. He had to die before my eyes. And I had to survive until that day.

  I became an instructor at Iwakuni Base. I was to teach the huge influx of student reservists.

  Our job as instructors was so boring it made me sick. The reserves were given only one year of flight training. There’s no way anyone can become a competent pilot in a year. The students were passionate and very good, but even so, a year’s training was totally insufficient. What’s the point of producing such a vast number of useless pilots? I thought. As it turned out, the military was planning on using them as kamikazes from the very start.

  I begged the flight commander repeatedly to send me back to the front, but my pleas fell on deaf ears.

  In October of 1944, I brought the greenhorns with me to Wonsan, Korea, where I had to keep on teaching.

  It was there that I heard of Shikishima Unit.

  I had absolutely no interest in becoming a kamikaze. I had no issue with falling to enemy fire during combat, but I hated the idea of dying in a special attack. I wanted to die as a fighter pilot. I wanted to be cut down by a master whose skills outclassed my own.

  In time, in Wonsan too, HQ recruited kamikaze volunteers. Everyone was given an envelope with a slip of paper inside. On the paper were three choices: “I strongly wish to volunteer,” “I wish to volunteer,” and “I do not volunteer.” We were supposed to mark one of the three options.

  The commander said, “It’s entirely up to each of you. I don’t care if you choose not to volunteer. Consider well before you reply.”

  I marked “I strongly wish to volunteer.” If I made any other choice, there was no telling what they might do to me. The military was that sort of place. I didn’t mind being shipped off to the front, but I couldn’t tolerate having my wings taken away and joining some island’s garrison.

  —What if I’d been ordered to become a kamikaze?

  I’d have crossed that bridge when I came to it. Even if I only started thinking about it then, it wouldn’t be too late. But I definitely wouldn’t have said, “Oh, all right then,” and gone off to my death.

  * * *

  —

  The following January, a special attack unit was abruptly formed within the Wonsan Air Unit.

  My name was not listed among those assigned to the first group. There were a dozen or so pilots that were selected, mostly student reserve officers, and they took off for the interior. They were to sortie from a special attack base on Kyushu.

  Then a second and a third wave of kamikaze units were formed and sent off to the interior for their missions.

  As I saw them off, I thought that if Japan was being reduced to such tactics, then we were done for. In the first place, there was no way deploying such inexperienced pilots would produce any results. It was obvious that
they’d be gunned down by enemy interceptors.

  Soon thereafter, I myself was transferred to the interior. My new base was Omura in Nagasaki. It wasn’t as a kamikaze. Instead I was to be a part of the fighter escort directly guarding them or establishing air supremacy.

  The military didn’t officially recognize individual kill scores, but I’m sure HQ was well aware that I had shot down a considerable number of enemy aircraft. By that point almost none of the veteran pilots who had served since the outset of the war was still alive. So the fact that I had served at Rabaul made me seem fairly seasoned.

  In March, the American fleet arrived in the seas near Okinawa, and Kamoya Base saw near-daily kamikaze sorties. Most of them were reserves or boy pilots from the Prep Program.

  I felt sorry for the student reservists. Sure, it was nice to be pampered and granted a commission right upon entering the military. But they were only taught the basics of piloting an aircraft then sent off to become kamikazes. And I think almost all of them failed to actually strike American warships. An aircraft isn’t so easy to handle that barely a year of training could make them proficient in the cockpit.

  Faced with an onslaught of unfriendly fighters, there was no way they could escape. Getting away while loaded down with heavy bombs was no easy task, even for seasoned pilots.

  At that time, the only goal of the Navy—as well as the Army—was to launch as many kamikaze attacks as they could. Older Type 96 fighters and even some seaplanes were deployed on kamikaze missions. I’ve heard that in the worst cases, training planes were used, too.

  I’m not the type of man who readily sympathizes with others, but I felt very sorry for those young pilots. They thought they were doing it for the sake of Japan and for their families. And after so much distress, their deaths weren’t rewarded in any way. Their deaths were a total waste. Their deaths had no value at all.