The Eternal Zero

by Naoki Hyakuta

  He and the reserve officer argued back and forth for a while until the younger man folded, and they switched planes. I remember that scene very well. Their conversation was bizarre enough as it was, but what happened afterwards cemented the events of that day in my memory.

  They took off before dawn. Ensign Miyabe didn’t return.

  * * *

  —

  Onishi fell silent, a terrible look on his face. After a long silence he said, “There’s an unpleasant continuation of this story.”

  “What is it, sir?”

  Onishi seemed hesitant.

  “Whatever it is, please tell us.”

  In response to my prodding, he seemed to make up his mind and opened his mouth. “Six Zeros carrying bombs sortied that day. But one of them was forced to make an emergency landing on Kikaijima Island due to engine problems.”

  I felt something cold race down my spine. “Is…Was it…”

  “Yes. It was the Zero that Ensign Miyabe should have flown: the Model 52. The pilot was the man who had switched places with Miyabe-san.”

  I was rendered speechless.

  “Had Ensign Miyabe not asked to change planes, he might have been the one to survive.”

  “No, no!” Keiko nearly screamed.

  “It must have been fate. The goddess of fortune had abandoned him at the last moment.”

  “That’s horrible!” Keiko yelled.

  I was dumbfounded.

  Had my grandfather been overcome with nostalgia at the sight of an old Model 21 on his final mission and thought to pilot it to his death? Had my grandfather, who had fought at Pearl Harbor and Guadalcanal in the Model 21, wanted to go down with an old war buddy? If there hadn’t been a Model 21 there that day, would he have sortied in the Model 52 and survived?

  Was the Model 21 a god of death that led him to the afterworld? Can such a terrifying twist of fate really happen?

  No, it couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. It seemed all too arbitrary.

  That instant, I felt a jolt race through me. “Onishi-san, what was the name of that pilot?” I asked breathlessly.

  Onishi seemed briefly lost as to what I was talking about. “Do you mean the name of the pilot that made the emergency landing?”

  He put on his glasses and flipped through the pages of the notebook.

  “Ah, here it is,” he said, pointing.

  On the page was a list of the special attack pilots who had died in combat, sorted by date, from August of 1945. I peered at the notebook. Next to five names was another, with the annotation: “Crash-landed on Kikaijima.”

  “Here.” Onishi seemed to be having trouble making it out. His reading glasses must have been out of date.

  “May I see?”

  Onishi nodded and handed over the notebook. I practically snatched it out of his hands. There, in neat script, were the words:

  “Ensign Kenichiro Oishi, Age 23, Student Reservist 13th Class, Waseda University”

  “Ahh,” I groaned.

  “What’s wrong?” Keiko asked fearfully. She looked down at the notebook. “Ah!” she cried.

  I tried to say something to her, but my voice refused to work. My teeth clacked together.

  Finally, I eked out, “Kenichiro Oishi…our Grandpa!”

  Chapter 12

  Shooting Star

  Grandpa leaned back into the chair in his study and closed his eyes.

  After a while he opened them and said, “I knew I’d have to tell you everything at some point.”

  I nodded, speechless. Keiko was sitting next to me.

  “When I heard that you were doing research on Miyabe-san, I prepared myself, knowing this day would come.” He retrieved a pill from his bottle of heart medication and washed it down with a sip of water.

  “Matsuno had insisted that there was no need to tell the children, but I still planned on talking to you about it someday. Just in case the opportunity to tell you never arose, I wrote it all down in a letter for you to read. I left it in the care of a junior lawyer some ten years ago. If I suddenly passed away, he was to give it to Kiyoko.”

  * * *

  —

  I met Miyabe-san at the Tsukuba Air Unit.

  We received training there to become kamikaze pilots. Not that we had been told as much from the outset. At first, we were trained in the basics of flight technique. Miyabe-san was our instructor for those sessions.

  After completing the flight-training course, we students were handed a form on which we were to respond whether we would volunteer or not for the kamikaze units. I selected to volunteer, but in fact I did not wish to do so. I doubt anyone actually wanted to. Yet everyone replied that they would. Were we gutless? I don’t think that’s correct.

  Back then, whether on the continent or on the islands dotted around the Pacific, many troops were giving up their lives every day. The newspapers carried rousing proclamations from Imperial General HQ, but also the phrase “shattered jewels.” Given all that, I was willing to surrender my life if doing so would protect my homeland and loved ones. Even if that meant dying a kamikaze.

  Yet there was also a resistance to dying. We weren’t madmen. We weren’t suicide-bound lemmings, joining the hoard, racing off a cliff into the ocean below. We wanted our deaths to have some meaning.

  * * *

  —

  Miyabe-san was gentle in both manner and speech. Despite the countless scenes of carnage he had survived, his quiet demeanor set him apart from the other instructors.

  What I sensed more than anything from him, however, was his internal conflict about teaching us how to fly. To repeat, we were to be kamikaze pilots. I felt that it pained him to teach us flight techniques. He would praise us when we made progress, but there was always sadness in his smile.

  Miyabe-san was a very compassionate man.

  Once, during a training session, there was an accident in which one of our classmates died. While we were still mourning the loss, a certain officer hurled abuse at him and us. Miyabe-san stuck out his neck and defended the honor of the fallen reserve officer.

  All of us were ready to give up our lives for him after that.

  Had Miyabe-san not spoken up then, his destiny as well as mine might have been different. A person’s fate can be drastically altered by the most trivial things. I still find myself confounded by the mysteries of fate.

  This happened one month later. We were in the middle of a training flight when enemy aircraft suddenly appeared. Miyabe-san, engrossed in instructing us, didn’t notice their approach. Even veteran pilots like him occasionally made such errors.

  I spotted the American fighters. I had just completed a dive and was returning to a higher altitude. As if in a trance, without thinking whatsoever, I charged in between the incoming aircraft and the instructor’s plane. I have no idea what I was thinking. I had totally lost myself to the moment. I could make myself look good by saying I went in there with the intention of sacrificing myself for him, but I don’t really know if that’s the truth. But I knew for sure that I wasn’t going to let them lay a finger on Instructor Miyabe.

  The trainer planes used by us students were not outfitted with machine guns. Even so, I dashed out in front of the enemy aircraft. Their bullets struck my plane, shattering my windshield. I lost consciousness and began falling, but came to when I was nearing the ground and somehow managed to pull up and fly level. I looked skywards to see an enemy plane plummeting down.

  I don’t remember very well what happened next. After touching down, I passed out cold.

  I was hospitalized at a naval hospital. Miyabe-san came to visit me once. He gave me an overcoat. He had apparently taken note of the fact that mine had grown threadbare and tattered. His overcoat was government-issued, too, of course, but he’d had some work done on it. It had a cotton lining, and leather affixed to the collar.


  But spring came before I ever got the chance to put my arms through the sleeves of that coat. I was finally discharged from the hospital and sent back to my unit, but by that point, he was no longer there. Neither were any of my classmates. I thought they had all already died.

  And I meant to follow after them.

  My emotions at the time were very complicated. At first, I found myself unable to accept that I was to die. I thought the situation was incredibly unjust. But little by little, I started to lean towards acceptance. This was definitely not just a case of me getting swept up in the times, nor was it easy for me to resolve to die. It was a state of mind achieved only after enduring extreme pain and mental conflict. It’s impossible to explain such feelings in a few words. I think it would still be very difficult to properly convey them even if I took the time to. I thought about it for a long time after the war. I thought about it after I grew old. But I was never able to reproduce the thoughts I had back then.

  Back then I felt like I’d arrived at my answer through some deep thinking, but I’m not even sure about that now. It was an age of insanity, so perhaps my thoughts were insane, too.

  But I can say this. We did not accept our fate with wild enthusiasm. We did not go off as kamikazes to die with joy in our hearts. At no other time have I ever thought so seriously about nation and family. At no other time did I give more thought to how the futures of my loved ones might unfold after I was gone.

  * * *

  —

  That July, I received my orders. I was to head to Omura Base in Kyushu.

  Right after I arrived, I received a very sad letter from my mother. She informed me that my fiancée had passed away. She was my cousin, and we had been close since we were children. As we grew up, our families naturally assumed we would become betrothed, and we became engaged, though only formally. We certainly liked each other, but I don’t think it was romantic love. It was just an innocent sort of companionship. We didn’t even hold hands. But when I became a student pilot, I decided to break off the engagement because I couldn’t be sure whether I would survive the war.

  She had received serious burns in the Great Tokyo Air Raid in May and died two weeks later according to my mother’s letter. I’d volunteered to conduct a special attack to protect my loved ones, but I’d lost the person I was meant to protect. When my eyes reached the part of the letter that said she’d called out my name right before she died, I couldn’t stop myself from weeping.

  * * *

  —

  In August we heard that a new kind of bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

  Omura was a stone’s throw from Nagasaki, so news of the disaster spread to us very quickly. A reserve officer in my class who had been a physics major at Kyoto University said, “The bomb that fell on Nagasaki might have been an atomic bomb.”

  “What kind of a bomb is that?” someone asked.

  The physics student explained that it made use of nuclear fission and that it was a terrible weapon with a destructive power so massive, traditional gunpowder-based ordnance paled in comparison.

  “Was the bomb used on Nagasaki really this atomic bomb?”

  “I don’t know. But if the rumors about the level of damage there are true, then it’s a possibility. The bomb used on Hiroshima might have been one, too.”

  If that’s true, then Japan might perish, I thought. If, by dying as a kamikaze, I can defend my homeland, then let me like a brave man. I’ll be able to go to where my betrothed is…

  * * *

  —

  Very soon after, I was ordered to sortie on a kamikaze mission. A classmate of mine, Teranishi, was also called up. We had resigned ourselves to our fates, so I think we were, for the most part, untroubled. We told each other, “Let’s go together.”

  We were sent to Kanoya. I met up again with Miyabe-san there.

  He had changed into a completely different person since the last time I had seen him. How can I explain it? His face was almost corpse-like. His eyes were bloodshot, and his whole body emanated a killer instinct. I’d never seen him that way before.

  I found myself unable to call out to him. But he noticed me.

  “Have your injuries healed?” he asked me, his face impassive.

  “Yes, thank you very much, sir.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  That was the extent of our conversation.

  The day I arrived at Kanoya, I was ordered to sortie in two days’ time. My mind was calm. My only regret was that I wouldn’t be able to see my mother one last time to say farewell. That night, I wrote a will addressed to her.

  The next day, I went for a walk outside the base. I left the settlement and headed towards the mountains.

  It was hot out, but it felt good to sweat. After the following day, I wouldn’t be able to sweat.

  Every sight seemed precious. Everything was beautiful. Even the grass on the side of the road was endlessly attractive. I crouched down to get a closer look and discovered tiny white flowers bursting from the weeds. The flowers were smaller than the tip of my little finger. So lovely, I thought in earnest. That was the first time I’d ever laid eyes on that flower, and I thought it was the most beautiful flower on the face of the earth.

  There was a small brook. I took off my shoes and stuck my feet into the flowing stream. The cold water felt great.

  I left my feet soaking in the water and sprawled out along the bank. When I closed my eyes I noticed the buzzing of cicadas. It was the first time I found their cries beautiful. And I thought that seven summers later, the cicadas’ offspring would sing in just the same way. When I wondered what Japan would be like then, I was filled with great sorrow.

  * * *

  —

  The next day before dawn, we gathered before the command post and listened to the words of our commander.

  I was stunned to see Miyabe-san among the group of kamikaze pilots. I’d assumed he’d be escorting us. I thought, So at last the Navy is killing off this man, too.

  After the ritual cups of water, when everyone was to head to their aircraft, Teranishi and I went over to speak to Miyabe-san.

  “I could not have asked for more than to die alongside you, Instructing Officer Miyabe,” Teranishi said.

  Miyabe-san merely nodded silently and placed his hands on our shoulders. There was strength in those hands. The stubble that had previously covered his face had been cleanly shaven off.

  “I never returned the overcoat you lent me, sir.” I still have no idea what prompted me to say that to him.

  “I don’t need it in the summertime, anyway,” he replied with a chuckle.

  I found myself laughing, too.

  “Well then, let’s go,” he said and walked towards the runway. All the engines were running. Just as I was climbing into the cockpit, Miyabe-san came over and called out to me. “Ensign Oishi, I have a request.” “Yes, what is it, sir?” “Will you switch planes with me?”

  He wanted to take the Model 21 that I was assigned instead of his Model 52. The Model 52 was far faster than the old 21. I turned him down, saying the better pilot should have the better aircraft.

  Miyabe-san left once, but then quickly returned. He repeated his request to switch planes. After arguing back and forth for a while, I finally agreed.

  I got down from the Model 21 and climbed into the Model 52.

  The wheel chocks were removed. The fighters began to slowly roll forward, and then took off.

  Miyabe-san’s Zero flew alongside mine. I could see him in the cockpit. Suddenly, I felt tears spring from my eyes. I didn’t care that I was going to die, but I wished from the bottom of my heart for him to survive.

  Losing a man like him meant Japan was finished. Was there any way my death could avert his?

  I wanted to sacrifice myself for his sake. I vowed to stay right at his side until
the very end. If any fighters targeted him, I would shield him. I would take on any and all anti-aircraft fire as well.

  The formation headed south. The sky to the east was growing faintly lighter. I recalled the old Japanese word shinonome, the reddish hue of early dawn. I marveled at the ancients’ way with language.

  I turned around to look behind me. Kagoshima Bay glittered. Kyushu’s mountains further in the distance were painted green, bathed in the morning sunlight. “Beautiful,” I whispered.

  I was going to my death alongside a truly magnificent man.

  I thought about my fiancée. I’ll be with you soon…

  Mother, I’m so sorry! I shouted in my mind. My life was a happy one. You raised me with such love. If I’m to be born once more, I hope it’s as your child again. As a girl, if possible…So I can stay with you all life long.

  Crying out these thoughts in my heart, I severed all worldly attachments. The beauty of my homeland, my feelings for my fiancée, the yearning for my mother, all of it.

  Our upcoming ramming attack on an enemy warship then became everything. And I would die for Miyabe-san.

  Yet not an hour into the flight my aircraft started acting up. The fuselage occasionally vibrated, and oil started spewing from the engine. The lubricant spattered on the front of the canopy, which rapidly became covered in a black film. I couldn’t see anything out the front.

  I continued to fly, trying not to break formation, now and then shifting the angle of my aircraft. So what? No big deal that I can barely see what’s in front of me, I thought.

  But the engine’s condition only worsened. The power output drastically dropped and I couldn’t keep up my airspeed. I opened the throttle flat-out but still found myself falling behind.