3. This translation is taken from Japan’s Longest Day, pp. 209–211, hereafter cited as Japan’s Longest Day. For a slightly different translation, see Herbert P. Bix’s monumental (and Pulitzer Prize–winning) Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, pp. 526–528, hereafter cited as Hirohito.
4. Japan’s Longest Day, p. 211.
5. Ibid., p. 212.
6. The threat is contained in the declaration’s final paragraph, which reads in its entirety: “We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.” For the text of the entire document, see Behind Japan’s Surrender: The Secret Struggle That Ended an Empire, pp. 158–159. Hereafter cited as Behind Japan’s Surrender.
7. The hawks’ terms—in addition to the retention of the monarchy—are outlined in Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, p. 291. Hereafter cited as Downfall.
8. Polity is one of several words used to define the Japanese concept of kokutai, an ambiguous concept that can mean “national character,” “national identity,” or even the “essence” of what it means to be Japanese. In the military sense, it is usually translated as “group.”
9. This account of the momentous August 9 meeting is drawn from Japan’s Longest Day, pp. 30–35, and Behind Japan’s Surrender, pp. 104–109. Although these and various other accounts differ somewhat on the words Hirohito actually spoke (they were not recorded and were later reconstructed based on the accounts of those present), they all agree on the substance.
10. Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal was a non–cabinet level administrative post, whose occupant was the keeper of the emperor’s official seal. For a more complete account of the February 1936 coup attempt, see Stanley Weintraub’s The Last Great Victory: The End of World War II, July/August 1945, pp. 535–538 (hereafter cited as The Last Great Victory), and Hirohito, pp. 296–303.
11. Japan’s Longest Day, pp. 36–37. For a slightly different version of this incident, see Downfall, p. 297.
12. As with other statements made by senior Japanese leaders during the last days of the war there are several varying translations of the “Anami Proclamation.” This one is taken from Japan’s Longest Day, p. 41.
13. Ibid., p. 42.
14. Japan’s Longest Day, pp. 44–45. See also The Last Great Victory, pp. 534–535, and Behind Japan’s Surrender, pp. 198–206.
15. Behind Japan’s Surrender, pp. 215–216.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Behind Japan’s Surrender, pp. 234–236.
19. Ibid., p. 239.
20. Behind Japan’s Surrender, pp. 251–252, and Japan’s Longest Day, pp. 73–74.
21. Japan’s Longest Day, pp. 75–77.
22. Downfall, p. 314
23. Ibid.
24. Japan’s Longest Day, pp. 81–83. See also Downfall, pp. 314–315, for a slightly different version of Hirohito’s remarks.
25. Japan’s Longest Day, pp. 87–88.
26. Ibid., pp. 141–142.
27. Also referred to as hara-kiri, this is ritual self-disembowelment performed with a knife or short sword.
28. Japan’s Longest Day, pp. 305–306.
Chapter 4: Ceasefire, or Not?
1. Homeland Air Defense Operations Record (Japanese Monograph 157), pp. 75–78, hereafter cited as Homeland Air Defense. See also the information provided by Major Hiroshi Toga, 10th AD staff officer (and a postwar contributor to Homeland Air Defense), during his October 23, 1945, interrogation in U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Interrogations of Japanese Officials. Hereafter cited as Toga interrogation.
2. Homeland Defense Naval Operations, Part III, Dec. 41–Aug. 45 (Japanese Monograph 124), pp. 27–29. Hereafter cited as Homeland Defense Naval Operations.
3. Homeland Air Defense, op. cit., and Toga interrogation.
4. Homeland Defense Naval Operations, p. 29.
5. I have chosen to use the Allied code names for World War II Japanese aircraft in this text simply because most readers will be more familiar with them than with the Japanese names.
6. General background information on the organization, personnel, equipment, and operations of the navy fighter units discussed in the chapter is drawn primarily from Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units in World War II; Imperial Japanese Navy Aces 1937–45; and Beyond Pearl Harbor: The Untold Stories of Japan’s Naval Airmen.
7. Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units in World War II, p. 215. Hereafter cited as Japanese Naval Aces.
8. Japan’s Longest Day, p. 164.
9. Ibid., p. 214.
10. Ibid.
11. Japan’s Longest Day, p. 183.
12. The figure 2,000 is quoted in Behind Japan’s Surrender, p. 375; other sources provide alternate numbers ranging from 500 to 2,500, so I have settled on 1,000 as an approximate figure.
13. The 5,300-aircraft figure is quoted in The Last Great Victory, p. 627.
14. The admiral was the grandfather of Vietnam POW and current Arizona senator John S. McCain III.
15. Air War Pacific: America’s Air War Against Japan in East Asia and the Pacific, 1941–1945. Hereafter cited as Air War Pacific. The F4U and FG-1 Corsairs were identical; the first was manufactured by Vought, and the second was a license-built version produced by Goodyear.
16. Although Moore’s victory was the last scored by a Navy pilot before the Japanese signed the surrender document on September 2 aboard USS Missouri, many authorities actually credit the final Navy air-to-air victory of the war to Lieutenant Commander T. H. Reidy, commander of VBF-83, who while flying an F4U Corsair shot down a navy Nakajima C6N “Myrt” reconnaissance aircraft over Tokyo at 5:40 A.M., just minutes before the American carrier aircraft received the official recall notice. The rationale—that the ceasefire went into effect at that time and that any action after that was somehow “unofficial”—is difficult to fathom in that hostilities obviously continued after that.
17. Behind Japan’s Surrender, p. 375.
18. A contraction of its designation in Japanese.
19. The B-17, piloted by Captain Raymond T. Swenson, was on final approach when it was attacked by Ibusuki and Lieutenant Commander Shigeru Itaya. The Japanese rounds ignited emergency flares stored aboard the Fortress, starting a fire that quickly consumed the bomber after it skidded to a halt. All of the B-17’s eight crewmembers survived but a passenger, flight surgeon First Lieutenant William R. Schick, died later that day from a bullet wound to the head. After the war Ibusuki joined Japan’s reformed Air Self-Defense force, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was killed on January 9, 1957, when the Sabre fighter he was flying collided with another aircraft.
20. Sakai is credited with shooting down the Boeing B-17C piloted by Captain Colin P. Kelly on December 10, 1941, an action for which Kelly was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross because he continued to fly the doomed aircraft so his crew could bail out; the Flying Fortress exploded before Kelly himself could escape.
21. Details about Sakai’s life are drawn largely from Winged Samurai: Saburo Sakai and the Zero Fighter Pilots, hereafter cited as Winged Samurai; with additional information from Japanese Naval Aces and Beyond Pearl Harbor.
22. USSBS (Pacific), Japanese Air Target Analysis, Objective Folders, Tokyo area, June 20, 1945, multiple citations.
23. Sadamu Komachi mentions this directive specifically in his article in Vol. 62, December 1978, issue of Maru Extra magazine, as translated by Osamu Tagaya. Hereafter cited as Maru Extra Komachi.
24. Text drawn from Combat Chronology of the U.S. Army Air Forces, August 15, 1945.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Though Gonoike is a more accurate transliteration of the Japanese name for this installation, I have chosen to use the more widely known English rendering, Konoike.
28. Pugliese Interview.
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sp; 29. Details of this flight are drawn from Final Mission Report, Mission 228-A-8, 16 August 1945.
30. Exhaust collector assembly failures were an all-too-common occurrence in B-32s. Many pilots involved in both the testing and combat operation of the Dominator complained about the problem, which was generally held to be the result of either shoddy workmanship, poor maintenance procedures, or both.
31. These steps are outlined in AAF Manual 51-126-7, “Airplane Commander Training Manual for the B-32 Dominator,” p. 98, which rather laconically states: “Although the foregoing steps are necessarily listed in sequence, they are actually done as nearly as possible all at once.”
32. The Type B radar was developed by the Tama Army Technical Research Station in early 1942. It covered a 90-degree sector with a radius of 125 to 150 miles, gave relatively accurate information on the target aircraft’s altitude and speed, and was used to supplement the earlier and less capable Type A system. See Homeland Air Defense, pp. 57–58.
33. Details of the flight are drawn from Final Mission Report, Mission 229-A-10, 17 August 1945.
34. Tomioka is routinely misidentified as “Tomika,” largely because that is the way it is referred to in the final mission report for 229-A-10.
35. Aircraft figures for Imba and Matsudo are drawn from Air Defense of the Homeland (Japanese Monograph No. 23), p. 71. Hereafter cited as Air Defense of the Homeland.
36. Svore Interview.
37. Details of the 302nd Air Group’s participation in the August 17 action are drawn from Dr. Ikuhiko Hata’s 1978 article, “Hachi Gatsu Ju Go Nichi No Ku Nippon Kugun No Saigo” (The Combat of August 18: the Last of the Japanese Air Force), hereafter cited as Combat of August 18; and from Yoshiaki Hasegawa’s article in Vol. 79 (October 1981) of Maru-Extra magazine.
38. Sakai’s personal account of the August 17 events is drawn from his 1992 book, Zero-sen No Saigo, which is usually translated as Saburo Sakai: Air Combat Record and is hereafter cited as Sakai Combat Record. It should be noted that most authorities consider this book to be a far more accurate account of the Japanese ace’s wartime experiences than was Samurai!, the often-cited volume written in the 1970s by American aviation writer Martin Caidin with Sakai’s input. Additional details of the Yoko Ku’s participation in the August 17 interception are drawn from Winged Samurai, pp. 134–135; from Imperial Japanese Navy Aces, p. 29 and pp. 52–53; and Rampage of the Roarin’ 20’s, pp. 328–330, hereafter cited as Rampage.
Historians have long noted discrepancies among the various Japanese pilots’ accounts of the August 17 and 18 encounters with the B-32s. For example, some sources say that Sakai flew on the 18th, rather than on the 17th, and at various points in his life Komachi said Sakai was his wingman, but then repudiated that in other accounts. I have chosen to relate the events in what I believe is the most accurate and factual way, based on a close reading and correlation of all the relevant sources.
39. The “clock” system allows an aircrew to call out the relative position of other aircraft in both the horizontal and vertical planes. The nose of the sighting aircraft is at twelve o’clock, its tail is at six o’clock, the right wingtip is at three o’clock and the left wingtip is at nine o’clock. If another aircraft is sighted above the horizontal plane it is “high”; if below the horizontal plane, it is “low.”
40. Although some accounts of the August 17 interception have the majority of the attacks being made on the B-32s by Japanese army aircraft, it is highly unlikely that any army interceptors took part, given that virtually all the army units in the Kanto region had already complied with the order to disable their aircraft. Though it is certainly possible that one or two individual army pilots took to the sky that day, virtually all surviving Japanese records indicate that it was the navy pilots from Atsugi and Oppama that carried out the attacks. Moreover, only a few of the American crewmen had ever experienced an enemy fighter attack, and they would therefore have had difficulty telling the difference between the navy’s George and the army’s Tojo in the heat of battle.
41. Author interview with Robert Russell, February 16, 1999. Hereafter cited as Russell Interview.
42. The report of a Ki-61 being involved in the attack on Svore’s Dominator remains one of the unsolved mysteries of the August 17 mission. Though virtually all Japanese army aircraft had been grounded by the time the four B-32s arrived over Tokyo, it is always possible that a lone army pilot had flown his aircraft to either Atsugi or Oppama and joined the navy aviators in their attacks. There was a Tony-equipped army unit, the 244th Sentai (fighter regiment) at Chofu, and it is possible this was one of that unit’s machines. It is also possible, however, that the Tony reported by the B-32 crew was actually a Judy night fighter, a type flown by the 302nd Air Group.
43. Svore Interview.
44. Elliot’s memories of the August 17 mission are drawn from Rampage, p. 329.
45. Commander-in-Chief’s Daily Intelligence Summary, 17/18 August 1945.
46. Despite the American gunners’ credible accounts, surviving Japanese records do not indicate any losses of friendly aircraft on August 17. The official USAAF/USAF records of enemy aircraft downed during World War II also do not credit any of the B-32 gunners with either kills or probables on August 17 because those claims could not be substantiated. It is worth remembering, however, that the Japanese destroyed massive amounts of military records in the weeks following the surrender, and that information regarding aircraft destroyed or damaged by the B-32s could well have been among them.
Chapter 5: A Desperate Fight
1. Pugliese Interview.
2. Svore Interview.
3. Pugliese Interview.
4. Details of Joe Lacharite’s life and military service are drawn primarily from the author’s February 6, 1997, interview with him—hereafter cited as Lacharite Interview—and from information provided by his family.
5. Men and Planes, pp. 643–644.
6. Modern Taichung. The field was also referred to as Toyohara.
7. Author interview with Burton J. Keller, hereafter cited as Keller Interview.
8. Author interview with Kurt F. Rupke, hereafter cited as Rupke Interview.
9. As noted earlier in this volume, there has long been some question whether Sakai flew against the B-32s on August 17 or 18. I have determined that the evidence points to his participation only on the 17th.
10. Narrative Mission Report, 20 August 1945.
11. Houston Interview
12. Keller Interview.
13. Author interview with John R. Blackburn. Hereafter cited as Blackburn Interview.
14. Author interview with Frederick C. Chevalier. Hereafter cited as Chevalier Interview.
15. Komachi’s account of his interception of the B-32 is drawn from his article “Becoming an Unusual Flying Ace After August 15,” hereafter cited as Komachi article. There has long been confusion about the type of fighter Komachi flew during this engagement. In his article he states it was a Jack, though other sources—such as Henry Sakaida in his excellent book Winged Samurai—say it was an N1K Shiden Kai “George.” The Yoko Ku had both types, as well as Zekes. I’m inclined to believe that the pilot had a fairly good idea of which type he flew.
16. Chevalier Interview.
17. Blackburn Interview.
18. Final Mission Report, Mission 230-A-8, 19 August 1945.
19. Blackburn Interview.
20. Komachi article. See also “The Combat of August 18,” by Dr. Ikuhiko Hata, and the entry on Komachi in Winged Samurai.
21. Keller Interview.
22. Houston Interview. See also Narrative Mission Report, 20 August 1945.
23. Keller Interview.
24. Narrative Mission Report, 20 August 1945.
25. Komachi article.
26. Lacharite Interview. Details of Joe’s wounding and Tony’s initial injuries are drawn largely from this interview. Additional details are cited as necessary.
27. Rupke Interview.
&nbs
p; 28. Ibid.
29. Narrative Mission Report, 20 August 1945.
30. Ibid., and Chevalier Interview, Anderson Interview, and author interview with Richard E. Thomas, hereafter cited as Thomas Interview.
31. Komachi article.
32. Keller Interview. Although Japanese pilots would have encountered single-tail B-17 Flying Fortresses during the initial years of the Pacific war, that type was almost completely replaced by the longer-range B-24 beginning in late 1942.
33. Lacharite Interview.
34. Rupke Interview.
35. Keller Interview.
Chapter 6: Peace, or War?
1. Pugliese Interview.
2. Narrative Mission Report, Mission 230-Z-5, 20th RS, 18 August 1945.
3. Pugliese Interview.
4. Chevalier Interview. As with the August 17 mission, the Japanese reported no aircraft losses resulting from the August 18 encounter, nor were any kills or probables credited to the American gunners.
5. MacArthur’s Ultra, pp. 223–225.
6. Pugliese Interview and Final Mission Report, Mission 230-A-8, 18 August 1945.
7. Pugliese Interview.
8. “Surrender on the Air,” in Military Review, May 1946, pp. 32–33.
9. Ibid., p. 38.
10. Ibid. For a detailed account of the communications between MacArthur and the Japanese, and of the events between August 15 and the September 2 surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay, see also Reports of General MacArthur: The Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific, Vol. I, Chap. 14, pp. 442–457. Hereafter cited as Reports of General MacArthur.
11. The account of Mitsuo Fuchida’s initial support of the coup, his interactions with fellow conspirators Kozono and Kogure, Kozono’s attempts to prevent the Kawabe delegation’s departure from Japan, and of the 302nd Air Group commander’s ultimate thwarting by Fuchida are based primarily on information in God’s Samurai, pp. 162–172.
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