The Eternal Zero

by Naoki Hyakuta

  You might think that kamikaze sorties were solemn, stern affairs. But since it was an everyday occurrence, we grew accustomed to it. At first the ground crews would tearfully wave their hats in farewell, but after a while it became part of the daily routine.

  Does that sound heartless? But that’s how humans are built. If we didn’t grow numb to it, we’d suffer nervous breakdowns. I’m sure that at first the commanders who ordered special attacks felt like they were slicing off a part of their own bodies. But after a while they must have drawn up the lists of pilots like it was just paperwork. I can’t blame them for that. That’s just how people are.

  But it’s a different matter if you’re the one being sent off to die. You only live once.

  They were truly upstanding young men. I had assumed that reserve officers coming straight from college would be a soft bunch. But lo and behold, they were all manly.

  I’d seen plenty of officers from the Naval Academy who spouted off brave words but were useless in combat. Meanwhile, the reserve officers sucked as pilots but went off to their deaths with dignity. Once I saw a Naval Academy graduate raising his voice and asking, “I have to go too?” when he was ordered to join a kamikaze mission. How pathetic.

  After the war, I met many yakuza, but the student reservists were so much tougher. They hadn’t been handpicked or anything. They’d been taken on in droves, and just a short year before they had been college students. So where did that bravery come from? How could plain students become so strong?

  Perhaps the concept of dying for the sake of loved ones really makes ordinary men grow that strong…

  What do you think?

  Yeah, of course you wouldn’t know. How could someone wallowing in today’s world comprehend their strength?

  The fact is, I don’t know, either.

  Some kamikazes were boys as young as seventeen. Those kids had such sparkly eyes. “I will happily go to my death,” they’d boldly declare, but I could tell that in the bottom of their hearts they were wrestling with terror. On the morning of their missions, all of their eyes would be puffy. They’d probably wept into their pillows all night without even realizing it. Yet they tried not to show any weakness. Damn, they were amazing!

  * * *

  —

  And yet—I’ll say it again. Their deaths were completely pointless.

  The special attacks were devised as a way for the military brass to save face. By the Battle of Okinawa, the Navy didn’t have a single fleet capable of taking on the American military. By all rights, they should have thrown up their hands and said they could no longer fight. But they did not see that as an option. Why? Because they still had aircraft. And so they decided to use all those planes in kamikaze operations. That’s what special attack personnel died for.

  It was the same with the Yamato. There was no way they could defeat the U.S. forces that had landed on Okinawa, but they couldn’t just stand by idly and watch the island be taken over. When the Imperial Army was fighting a hopeless battle on Okinawa, the Navy couldn’t be sitting on its hands. Could they allow the Yamato to remain while other ships had been destroyed? If not, they had to deploy her even if defeat was the only possible outcome.

  After the war, I opened several gambling dens. It’s the amateurs who don’t know how to cool it. Once they’ve squandered a lot of cash, the blood rushes to their heads, and figuring there’s no point in holding onto what little they have left, they bet it all.

  For the General Staff, ships, airplanes, and troops were like gambling money. When they were winning, they were stingy, missing the chance to win big. Once the situation gradually worsened and they started losing, they got pissed off and bet everything at once, like typical amateurs.

  * * *

  —

  So was the use of the Yamato in a suicide mission a total waste? Did all of the kamikazes in the Battle of Okinawa die entirely in vain? Not so.

  At Okinawa, many soldiers and civilians fought a desperate battle. In the face of the Americans’ overwhelming advantage, they were ready to die to the last man. Well, does one sit idly because going there would be no use? Mustn’t a bushi aid them even if he knows he won’t survive?

  What am I saying…Aw, shit. There’s something terribly wrong with me today.

  Was the Yamato’s sea kamikaze mission a total waste? As far as results go, yes. But Admiral Ito, and the crew of more than three thousand, martyred themselves for Okinawa. The Shinpu Special Attack Force was the same.

  They may have been killed for the sake of the General Staff and Combined Fleet Command, but what they offered up their lives for was their nation, and Okinawa.

  Enough. I’m sick of talking about the Yamato.

  * * *

  —

  My task was to guard kamikazes and to shoot down any enemy aircraft that tried to attack them. But by that point, we were already vastly outnumbered and there was no hope for victory. The Americans had positioned picket destroyers well forward of the main task force and were able to detect incoming kamikazes via radar. They could even discern the planes’ altitude. If our planes were at 3,000 meters, they’d be at 4,000 meters, and if we were at 5,000 meters, they’d come in at 6,000. They would always be waiting to ambush us from above.

  Then, from their cushy position, they would attack. The escort fighters, flown by seasoned pilots, could dodge that first strike, but the inexperienced kamikaze pilots were unable to, and many were felled in the initial assault.

  It was extremely rare for a kamikaze to reach the Americans’ fleet.

  Some kamikazes judged that they couldn’t possibly reach the carrier fleet and instead hurled themselves at one of the picket destroyers. That was far more worthwhile, they figured, than aiming for an aircraft carrier and simply getting shot down.

  The destroyers apparently found this unacceptable. I saw one ship where the crew had painted a large arrow on the deck as if to show us the way to the aircraft carriers. I was appalled at first, but in time, I felt like tipping my hat to them. A military that’s capable of doing that sort of thing is the truly indomitable one, in my book.

  The kamikazes were finally unable to sink any large warships but did take out a number of smaller vessels, destroyers and transports and such. I think the American crew who manned those destroyers far ahead of the main task force, where the kamikaze could get to them, were very brave.

  Guard contingent fighters had to protect the special attack planes. We were told to put ourselves in the line of fire to protect them if necessary. But that was a bridge that I was not willing to cross.

  The most we could do was chase off enemy fighters. But no matter how many unfriendlies we fended off, they kept coming at us, each wave taking out one or two more kamikazes.

  Sometimes, the entire kamikaze formation was shot down before my eyes. It was a wretched sight. People think that kamikazes went out in a blaze of glory as they crashed into a warship, but mostly they were shot down long before they got that far. During the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the Americans easily shot down our attack planes and mockingly called it the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.” During the Battle of Okinawa, they must have had an even easier time taking out our kamikazes.

  Only a handful got near the enemy’s mobile task force. Even if they went down to anti-aircraft fire, merely getting that close must have been satisfying for the pilots.

  After the kamikazes were shot down by enemy fire, the guard contingent was free to engage hostiles, but we usually didn’t dare to. Surrounded by numerous enemy aircraft, it was all we could do to save our own hides. Not to mention that these were F6Fs or Sikorskys, both far superior to the Zero. Had we at least been evenly matched in number, we might have been able to put up a fight, but against a horde of them there was no hope of winning.

  The moment you got on the tail of an enemy, another one of them would simply latch onto yours. If you k
ept firing on the aircraft in your sights you might shoot it down, but you’d end up dead, too. Plus, it took more than a few bullets striking home to take down an American fighter, whereas a single hit could demolish a Zero.

  The American pilots were far more competent than they had been at Rabaul two years before, which is why fighter pilots on escort duty were frequently shot down as well. On some missions, not a single plane, the escort included, returned to base.

  And by that time, our planes’ readiness quotient had sharply declined. Factories in the interior had been ravaged by air raids, rendering them incapable of producing sufficient numbers of aircraft. Many planes simply weren’t capable of flight, and more than a few faltered after takeoff. In fact, nearly every day we had kamikazes who were forced to return to base due to engine problems. A number of fighters made emergency landings on Kikaijima Island, but the unlucky ones fell into the ocean.

  I didn’t forget about Miyabe even while I was escorting kamikazes.

  At night, I would lie on an embankment by the runway looking up at the stars, and time and again my thoughts would turn to him. I’d wonder if he was gazing up at the same stars at that moment. Then I’d think to myself, Don’t you die yet, Miyabe. When you die, I have to be there to witness it.

  The Battle of Okinawa lasted for about three months.

  During the period, I sortied countless times as part of the guard contingent, or flew on ahead of the kamikaze squad as part of the air supremacy team, engaging enemy aircraft lurking in the skies. On a few occasions, I shot down some enemy fighters before returning to base.

  The Americans had captured Okinawa completely by the end of June. Including those launched by the Army, over 2,000 kamikazes perished.

  Since we’d already lost Iwo Jima in March, losing Okinawa meant that America had filled our moat.

  For some time before then, the urban areas of Japan had been under near-constant attack from B-29 bombers launching from Saipan. And after Iwo Jima had fallen, the bombers were escorted by P-51 fighters. In the face of attacks carried out by massive formations of bombers and fighters, the air defense units at various bases around Japan were no more than bugs.

  I participated in a number of those battles. The P-51 was an incredible fighter. Those monsters were beyond formidable.

  The performance gap between the P-51 and the Zero was so vast it was like comparing an adult and a child. The P-51’s cruising speed was 600 km/h, while even at top speed a Zero couldn’t hit 600 km/h. Cruising speed is the speed at which an aircraft has maximum fuel efficiency. A Zero’s cruising speed was just over 300 km/h, while the P-51’s top speed was over 700 km/h. Their bulletproofing and armament were far superior to that of the Zero, too. Moreover, these monsters could leisurely fly from Iwo Jima to the mainland, partake in plenty of fighting, then head on back to Iwo Jima. Zeros had flown between Rabaul and Guadalcanal, but this was an even greater distance.

  The P-51’s high-altitude performance was extraordinary, and it could readily dogfight at 8,000 meters above sea level. Flying at all was the most that Japanese fighters could do at that height. The engines complained loudly if we forced them to work where oxygen was so scarce. And it got so cold up there that dogfighting would be the last thing on our minds. Our cockpits were fitted with oxygen masks, but there was no protection from the cold. It was not a cockpit designed to withstand double-digit subzero temperatures. Which is why we could only throw up our hands when the B-29s were escorted by P-51s. No other fighter existed that could take on a P-51 at 8,000 meters.

  We fought with everything that we had, but every time our fighters sortied to intercept incoming enemy aircraft, they were mercilessly shot out of the sky.

  The P-51s and Grummans would nonchalantly drift down and strafe targets on the ground, too. Buildings, trains, automobiles, people. They had no issue with gunning down civilians running about trying to flee. I don’t think they considered Japanese to be human beings. I bet those pilots took shots like they were hunting animals.

  But when they came down to lower altitudes, we had a chance to strike back. I shot down P-51s just once, in June of 1945. I had gone out to meet incoming aircraft after a report came in, and on my way back after failing to apprehend enemy aircraft, I discovered a flight of four P-51s firing on a train.

  I attacked them from above. They immediately noticed me, but surprisingly, only one of the four turned to challenge me. The other three were going to sit back and watch. I suppose that by then, they considered Japanese planes to be unworthy of their consideration.

  At that point, most of the pilots in the Japanese military were barely better than novices, and there were hardly any who could take on the high-performance American military aircraft, not to mention the P-51, which was an invincible fighter. I imagine the pilot of the one that turned towards me had told his fellow pilots over the wireless, “He’s mine to kill, so stay out of it.” And I’m sure the other three looked on with smirks on their faces. Even though we were at low altitude, the P-51 was challenging me to a dogfight.

  I wasn’t some rookie, however. I had survived Rabaul, “the Airmen’s Graveyard.” And Zeros were robust fighters at lower altitudes. After dodging a shower of bullets fired by the P-51, I made a hard turn and ended up on his tail. He slid away, trying to escape, but it was too late. I fired my 20-mm cannons and tore off one of his wings.

  After witnessing their comrade’s demise, the remaining three fell into formation and came after me from above. I ascended, evading their attacks. I ducked two of them and they flew out ahead, but the third pursued me. He revved up his engine and rapidly drew close. Just then, I went into a barrel roll. He followed. Idiot! I made a tight turn, curving back and pulling up behind him. He panicked and tried to escape by going into a dive, as per their usual tactics, so I could predict his every move. I readied a deflection shot, aiming ahead on his dive trajectory, and fired my 20 mms. I watched as my bullets shattered his windshield. He went into a tailspin and crashed.

  The two remaining fighters descended, apparently intending to catch me in a pincer attack. I pulled up, aiming my Zero directly towards one of them. He let loose a barrage of bullets like he was throwing so much sand, but I took careful note of his axis line. All of the tracer bullets went high, passing over my head. Afraid that I was trying to ram into him, he hurriedly swerved right. This was suicide. I fired off every bullet I had left in my machine guns. Black smoke spurted from the underside of the P-51 and it fell away towards the mountains.

  The last P-51 had fled and was already far away.

  That was the only time I shot down P-51s. I’m not trying to brag or anything. They had made the mistake of dogfighting a Zero at low altitude, and their piloting skills had been rudimentary. Things would have turned out differently against better pilots at high altitude.

  This is something I learned after the war, but the famous Sadaaki Akamatsu took on a formation of seventy-five P-51s all by himself, shooting down one before heading back to base. He was one hell of a bullshitter, but on that occasion there had been a large number of witnesses. And his aerial combat skills were truly impressive. Some of those guys who went back to the Sino-Japanese War were seriously not to be trifled with.

  I never thought that I wasn’t a match for a P-51. I felt that I wouldn’t lose a one-on-one fight, and even outnumbered, I was sure I could at least escape unscathed. Since they tended to use hit-and-run tactics, so long as I dodged their first strike they really weren’t so scary a foe. It was just that shooting one down was no easy task. But I’m sure it was difficult for young pilots to dodge that first strike.

  Beginning in the spring of ’45, B-29s carpet-bombed major Japanese cities including Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, and Fukuoka, reducing them to burnt-out ruins. Reports of these attacks reached us at Kanoya. It was as plain as day that, no matter how hard we struggled, we would never win the war. Most of our munitions plants had been demolished, making it
impossible even to continue fighting, it seemed.

  Germany surrendered that May. Japan was the only country left against the rest of the world, and we were heading towards the same fate. By that point, our bases in southern Kyushu came under devastating air raids from American planes flying from Okinawa, and most of our remaining aircraft had been transferred to bases in northern Kyushu. I was transferred to Omura as well.

  In July, the entire Naval Air Corps was converted into kamikaze formations. All younger pilots were ordered to conduct special attacks. Veteran pilots were ordered to join ground attack units. It amounted to a proclamation that fighter planes no longer had any role to play.

  In August, reports came in that a new type of bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. Rumor had it that the city had vanished in an instant. Soon after, the new type of bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, too. As Omura was very close to Nagasaki, news of the dire situation reached us quickly. But even upon hearing these things I wasn’t agitated. I was only concerned with my own battles. Even if I was the last man standing, I would go out to engage American aircraft.

  I was given an order to transfer from Omura to Kanoya right before the end of the war, to escort the kamikazes that launched from there.

  It was there that I was reunited with the man who haunted me even in my dreams. Yes, Miyabe. It had been about a year and a half since our parting.

  But when I saw his face, at first I didn’t even recognize him. His demeanor had completely changed. His cheeks were sunken, his jaw was covered in stubble, and only his eyes shone with a strange light. The Miyabe I’d known before had always been very tidy and clean-shaven. His insignia indicated that he was now an ensign.

  Shall I tell you how I honestly felt when I saw him again? I was happy. Don’t ask me why, though.

  Perhaps it was because over the course of the previous year or so I’d witnessed too much death. Many veteran pilots had died in the course of their duties as fighter escorts for the kamikazes. In part I must have been glad that he’d made it.