Last to Die

by Stephen Harding

  SITED ABOUT TWENTY-THREE miles southwest of Tokyo and eleven miles due west of Yokohama, Atsugi naval air station had originally been constructed in 1938 but, following the 302nd’s arrival in March of 1944, had been expanded into the navy’s largest and most elaborately protected airdrome. The field was ringed by anti-aircraft guns and its most vital facilities—command centers, fuel and ammunition storage areas, workshops, barracks, and hangers—were underground. Aircraft on air-defense alert status were housed in sophisticated hardened shelters adjacent to the runways.

  The 302nd was operationally assigned to the Yokosuka Naval District and was one of three similar units organized specifically for homeland air-defense operations, the others being the 332nd in the Kure Naval District and the 352nd in the Sasebo Naval District.4 At the time the 302nd arrived at Atsugi the unit’s aircraft were among the best the navy could muster at that point in the war, comprising some twenty-four advanced Mitsubishi J2M-series land-based Raiden single-engine fighters (known to the Allies by the code name “Jack”); twenty older but still highly capable Mitsubishi A6M Zero-Sen (“Zeke”) carrier fighters; and thirteen Nakajima J1N1-S Gekko (“Irving”), twelve Yokosuka P1Y1-S Ginga (“Frances”), and seven Yokosuka D4Y2-S Suisei (“Judy”) night fighters.5 These latter three types had originally been developed for other purposes—the Irving and Frances as land-based, twin-engine light bombers and the Judy as a single-engine, carrier-based dive bomber. But earlier in his career Kozono had demonstrated that they could be converted into competent bomber-killers by fitting them with Type-99 20mm cannon installed to fire obliquely from a gun bay behind the cockpit. The Irving was fitted with four guns, two firing at a 30-degree angle upward and the other two at the same angle downward, whereas the Frances carried only the two upward-canted weapons and the Judy, just one. This armament configuration allowed the searchlight-and, later, radar-equipped night fighters to eviscerate American B-24s and B-29s, often before their crews were even aware they were under attack.6

  Kozono and his aviators put their aircraft to good use in the months following the 302nd’s operational debut, by one authoritative estimate knocking down some 300 enemy aircraft by early August of 1945.7 But it was far from a one-sided battle; increasingly frequent attacks on Atsugi by U.S. Navy carrier planes and by Iwo Jima–based U.S. Army Air Forces P-47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang fighters and B-24s from Okinawa took a heavy toll of the 302nd’s men and machines. By the time Kozono arrived at Atsugi at 2 P.M. on August 14 after his mad dash from Tokyo his entire unit consisted of only ten flyable Jacks, four Zekes, and two or three of the night fighters.

  The paucity of aircraft available for an attack against the approaching enemy didn’t seem to overly concern Kozono, for soon after roaring through Atsugi’s front gate he gathered his senior staff members and ordered them to begin preparing plans for various offensive scenarios. But in a case of the flesh being significantly weaker than the spirit, Kozono was soon so deep in the throes of his malarial relapse that he had to take to his bed for several hours, finally managing to rise and stagger back to the 302nd’s underground operations room—still alternately sweating and shivering—at about 8 P.M. Despite his frail condition, he stood resolutely before his deputy commander and remaining senior staffers. After apprising them of the “treasonous” events in Tokyo and informing them that the emperor’s recorded rescript would be broadcast to the nation at noon the following day, he firmly announced that he was determined to fight to the end. When one of his listeners asked how they could disobey Hirohito’s will and the direct and unequivocal orders of the navy’s senior leaders, Kozono forcefully replied, “How can we be disobeying the Emperor’s decision if what we do is for his and the country’s good?”8

  Warming to his topic despite his illness, Kozono cried out, “as long as I am commander here, the Atsugi Air Corps will never surrender! There is a supply of food underground that will permit us to hold out for two years. And I personally intend to do so. Are any of you with me?”9

  Shouts of assent filled the small, smoke-filled room.

  “Let them call us traitors,” Kozono cried, his voice quivering with both passion and resolve. “It doesn’t matter. Surrender is not only against our traditions, it’s against our law. Japan cannot surrender. Are you with me?”10

  Loud cheers echoed within the concrete-reinforced space. There was no dissent from the gathered officers, either because they were of the same diehard Bushido-driven temperament as their leader or because none wished to be seen as “defeatist.” A drawn and shaking Kozono then retired to his quarters yet again, where he sat wearily at his desk to compose a message he intended to send to all major Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) commands by cable. Barely able to hold the pen, Kozono wrote:

  The order to cease fire, and the order to disarm that will follow, must inevitably mean the end of our national structure and of the Emperor. To obey such orders would be equal to committing high treason. Japan is sacred and indestructible. If we unite for action, we will destroy the enemy. Of that there can be no doubt whatsoever. I hope that you will agree with me.11

  As Kozono was completing his missive and ordering it sent to all senior IJN commanders, his officers began transforming his expressed intent into military reality. Plans were proposed, evaluated, and discarded, and by the time dawn broke on August 15 the staffers had settled on the only three tactics that seemed possible, given their limited resources. First, because American strike aircraft often arrived in the hours just after dawn, as soon as the sun was up a quartet of Jacks would take to the air to provide a combat air patrol over Atsugi. The 302nd’s remaining aircraft would then bombard the Tokyo area with leaflets proclaiming that the emperor’s noon speech had been coerced and calling on all “true Japanese” to reject the idea of surrender and fight on to the death. That done, the unit’s pilots would go on a rotational alert status, ready to leap into the few remaining aircraft and roar aloft to do whatever they could to punish any Allied aircraft foolish or arrogant enough to transgress the skies of sacred Nippon.

  As the sun rose higher over Atsugi, it quickly became apparent that the 302nd Air Group would have access to more men and aircraft than the planners had anticipated. Among the other organizations resident on the air station was a training school for kamikaze (“divine wind”) pilots, men who had willingly volunteered—or, in some cases, been ordered to volunteer—to give their lives in sacred, selfless service to the nation and the emperor by crashing their bomb-carrying aircraft into enemy ships, a tactic that had worked frighteningly well during the American invasion of Okinawa. Atsugi was home to more than 1,000 young and inexperienced aviators—most had fewer than ten actual flight hours—who had been undergoing final training.12 Having already made the choice to die for Japan, the kamikaze pilots were obviously stunned and horrified by the rumors of surrender that began circulating around the sprawling naval base in the early hours of August 15. Though not operationally part of Kozono’s interceptor unit, many of the young pilots began gathering outside the entrance to the 302nd’s headquarters when they heard that the legendary air group commander was determined to continue the fight against the Allies.

  This must have been a heartening development for the increasingly ill Kozono, for as a senior officer he was likely aware that more than 5,300 kamikaze aircraft were at that moment hidden from Allied eyes in caves, underground storage areas, and heavily camouflaged airfields across southern Japan.13 Though the vast majority of the machines—including the fifty or so at Atsugi—were trainers and obsolete fighters or light bombers rather than current frontline types, their sheer numbers would pose a formidable threat to any approaching Allied occupation force. The “divine wind” might also prove lethal to enemy aircraft, given that ramming a B-29 could be just as effective a way to destroy it as shooting it down. If he could rally the pilots of all the kamikazes in southern Japan to his anti-surrender cause, Kozono must have reasoned, he might well be able to scuttle the looming capitulation and force his cowar
dly government to fight on.

  With his four-plane combat air patrol aloft Kozono moved on to the vital task of informing the citizens of Tokyo that their government was attempting to betray and dishonor them. The thousands of anti-surrender leaflets that had been printed overnight—all calling for a general uprising against the defeatists surrounding the emperor and urging “thorough resistance” against the oncoming American invaders—were loaded aboard several of the temporarily reassigned kamikaze training aircraft. These machines took off ninety minutes before the noon broadcast of the recorded imperial rescript, and their paper ordnance was therefore dropping over the capital even as Hirohito’s high, tremulous voice hit the airwaves from NHK’s main studio. Kozono himself listened to the broadcast sitting cross-legged on his bed at Atsugi, attempting to deal with his worsening malarial symptoms by self-medicating with cup after delicate porcelain cup of warm sake. When Hirohito’s words made it all too clear that Japan was really going to do the unthinkable, the veteran naval aviator launched the second part of his plan. He ordered his remaining frontline interceptors and several of the less-decrepit kamikaze trainers aloft in search of Allied aircraft.

  The Japanese pilots didn’t have to look far to find the hated enemy. Though the arrival in Washington of Japan’s official acceptance of the surrender terms had prompted Far East Air Forces headquarters to halt all offensive operations as of the early morning hours of August 15 (local time), at 4:15 A.M. the carriers of U.S. Vice Admiral John S. McCain’s Task Force 38 had launched 103 fighters and attack aircraft on a planned sweep of the Tokyo area.14 The American pilots were over their targets when they received the recall notice, but many had already been engaged by Japanese anti-aircraft guns and interceptors and were unable to simply reverse course and head back to their ships. In the ensuing dogfights U.S. F6F Hellcats and F4U/FG-1 Corsairs took on army and navy fighters, downing more than twenty of the Japanese aircraft over the Kanto Plain and others at sea.15 As might be expected, however, the Americans did not escape unscathed: by the time the attackers set off for the return to their carriers, thirteen Navy and Marine Corps aircraft had been lost to fighters or ack-ack over the Kanto Plain, or just offshore. The single worst U.S. loss occurred just after the recall message was received; some twenty army Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate (“Frank”) single-engine interceptors jumped six Hellcats of Navy fighter squadron 88 (VF-88) over Tokorozawa airfield, sixteen miles northwest of Tokyo. The Americans claimed nine Franks, but lost four Hellcats and their pilots.

  Although it is unclear from surviving records whether the 302nd Air Group’s J2M or A6M interceptors were involved in the day’s many running battles over the Kanto Plain, pilots of VF-88 reported downing three Jacks within only a few miles of Atsugi. We do know, however, that several of the kamikaze trainer aircraft dispatched on the leaflet-dropping mission failed to return, either because they were shot down by the marauding Americans or because their pilots—still hoping to strike a blow against the enemy—flew off to attempt suicide attacks against the U.S warships offshore. It is entirely possible that the Judy shot down by Ensign Clarence A. Moore of USS Belleau Wood’s VF-31 Squadron just before 2 P.M.—the last air-to-air kill of the day and the last by a Navy pilot in World War II—was one of Kozono’s night fighters or an Atsugi-based kamikaze trainer.16

  Whatever impact the August 15 battles may have had on the 302nd’s aircraft and pilots, Kozono’s actions over the rest of that day indicate that he, at least, believed his organization had acquitted itself reasonably well and that its aggressive anti-surrender attitude should be replicated by other navy units. He had been sending cables to senior commanders throughout the day urging them to repudiate the emperor’s surrender announcement and fight on, and was likely both heartened and humbled later that evening by the news that at least one august superior seemed to share his views: just before 6 P.M. Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki, commander of the Kyushu-based Fifth Air Fleet and the man largely responsible for launching the waves of kamikazes that so hammered American naval forces at Ulithi and Okinawa, climbed into the rear seat of a Judy and led ten other aircraft on a last-ditch suicide mission against U.S. vessels loitering just over the darkening horizon. That the admiral and his men apparently never found the enemy—no kamikaze attacks were recorded that evening—would probably not have bothered Kozono much. It would likely have been enough for the 302nd’s commander that Ugaki had personally led the mission, from which neither he nor any of the others returned.

  Kozono’s belief that only his beloved navy had the courage and resolve to continue the fight seemed to be borne out by the fact that by the time night fell on August 15 the commanders of the majority of army aviation units in the Kanto region had finally decided to obey the order issued the day before by Lieutenant General Masao Yoshizumi, the chief of the Military Affairs Bureau in the War Ministry. Knowing that some of his aviators would be sorely tempted to keep fighting despite the emperor’s decision to surrender, Yoshizumi had directed that the propellers and fuel tanks be removed from all army aircraft to prevent their unauthorized use following the ceasefire. Although many army pilots found it impossible to stand down while there were still enemy aircraft looking for a fight—witness the number of army interceptors that took part in the battles earlier that day against the U.S. carrier planes—the apparent cessation of American attacks as a result of Hirohito’s acceptance of the surrender terms led most army squadrons to carry out Yoshizumi’s command, resulting by midnight in the permanent grounding of nearly all of the army’s remaining combat aircraft.17

  The fact that the 302nd Air Group had not similarly responded to the ceasefire orders issued by the Navy Ministry did not go unnoticed in Tokyo, of course. Atsugi’s communications center had been receiving a steady stream of urgent radio messages, cables, and telephone calls since dawn, all of which ordered Kozono and his men to stand down immediately and disable their aircraft. Though slipping deeper into the grip of his intense malarial relapse, the “Father of Japanese Night Fighters” refused to acknowledge any of the directives from higher headquarters, and a few hours after Hirohito’s speech he’d ordered that all incoming communications lines be shut down. He continued to send messages out, however, dispatching couriers to nearby military installations bearing written pleas that they join the anti-surrender fight.

  In seeking allies for his continuing war against the Americans, Kozono relied exclusively on the Bushido-infused “Japan must never surrender” argument that so motivated him and other diehards. But, as noted earlier, there was another type of Japanese aviator present in the Kanto region, one who understood and accepted the emperor’s expressed reasons for the necessity for Japan’s surrender but who had made the rational and militarily supportable decision that the nation’s airspace should remain inviolate until the surrender document had actually been signed. After all, these pilots reasoned, there was no way to determine whether Allied aircraft flying over the Home Islands after the ceasefire had gone into effect would themselves actually refrain from hostile action. Perhaps the Americans would elect to drop one of their horrible new bombs on Tokyo despite the supposed cessation of hostilities, just to further punish Japan and at one stroke eliminate the emperor and all the other senior leaders whom the enemy held accountable for causing the Pacific war. Moreover, this “rationalist” argument went, Japan remained a sovereign nation—at least for the moment—and as such she had the internationally recognized right to prevent overflights of her territory by military aircraft of a technically still-belligerent nation or alliance, no matter the intent of the aerial intrusion.

  Unfortunately for the B-32 crewmen who would soon find themselves over Tokyo, one of the largest groups of “rationalist” Japanese aviators was based at Oppama air station. The men, members of the famed Yokosuka Kokutai, were also among the most experienced—and thus the most potentially lethal—pilots in the Japanese navy. First organized in April 1916, the Yokosuka Air Group—referred to by its members as the Yoko Ku18—was the oldest
and throughout its history arguably one of the most accomplished air groups in the navy. Over the first two decades of its existence the unit was primarily a research-and-development and advanced-training organization, with its integral fighter squadron responsible for both the flight-testing of newly introduced navy aircraft and the formulation and fleet-wide dissemination of innovative aerial combat tactics. In keeping with its status and duties the Yoko Ku tended to attract the best and the brightest from among the ranks of naval aviators, and among its alumni were such luminaries as Minoru Genda, the man who helped plan the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

  Despite the Yoko Ku’s fame, its home base, Oppama naval air station, was nowhere near as well-equipped or prestigious as the 302nd’s Atsugi. Built partially on land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay east of the entrance to Kawazana Bay a mile to the northwest of the vast naval shipyard and harbor complex at Yokosuka, the airfield dated to the late 1920s and was originally home to landplanes, seaplanes, and lighter-than-air craft. Oppama was sited among several low coastal hills across a narrow channel from the Azuma Peninsula and was known to navy pilots as a “challenging” field. Though they had been improved somewhat over the years, the base’s two intersecting runways remained shorter than average and the landing approach from the west required pilots to avoid the hills while being buffeted by the near-constant winds that wafted between them. Despite, or perhaps because of, these challenges, Yoko Ku aviators were deeply attached to what was in a military sense their “ancestral home.”