Zero

by Masatake Okumiya

  I was pleased to see that, instead of the ramshackle quarters of Buin, the 26th staff now worked in a splendid native house, with a high tropical floor. A section was apportioned off as sleeping quarters, and the building was well furnished. With facilities such as these, obviously the commander and his staff would be able to direct their oper­ations with the greatest efficiency. I did not even wait for my car to stop, but climbed out when it still was moving and ran up the stairs leading to the operations room.

  The moment I passed through the door I realized something was wrong. Outwardly the staff personnel were the same. Nevertheless they had changed. Six months ago they were cheerful and hard workers, despite the rigors of life at Buin. Now, they were quick-tempered and harsh, their faces grimly set. The fighting spirit which enabled us to ignore the worst of Buin was gone. The men lacked confi­dence; they appeared dull and apathetic. No longer were they the familiar well-functioning team.

  It was difficult to determine the reason for this startling change. Perhaps it was the never-ending pressure of enemy attacks, or the realization that American troops battered their way closer to Rabaul every day. It was possible that finally they had despaired entirely of victory, and were only waiting for the end to come. Their expressions and actions indicated clearly that they wished to abandon Rabaul at the earliest possible moment.

  Yet, despite the American boast that by Christmas their forces would be in Rabaul, the 26th Air Flotilla had somehow managed to hold back the Americans from sweeping over Bougainville Island. Although this was only a defen­sive action, any respite from the giant war machine’s pounding its way north in the Pacific could have come only from a great fighting effort. Even the success of this delaying operation failed to buoy the spirits of the headquarters staff.

  Before long, I could understand the prevalent apathy. I learned that even the Buin attacks could not compare to the devastating enemy assaults against Rabaul. The Amer­icans hurled hundreds of planes in incessant day and night attacks at our crucial base. Sleep became impossible as high-flying bombers and night intruders dropped bombs during the evening. The men were completely exhausted.

  In the air war raging around Bougainville and Rabaul, the bomber crews were required first to be competent engi­neers before they could become effective in combat. In the aircraft types employed by our air flotilla, composed of single-seat fighters, two-seat dive bombers, and three-seat level and torpedo bombers, the highest levels of teamwork were necessary to survive the strong enemy air opposition. This demanded, of course, considerable training and coor­dination of effort on the part of the crew members. We found that replacements who lacked the intimate knowl­edge which allowed them to fit smoothly into a bomber’s established routine became not an asset but a liability. Past combat experience was insufficient to replace the teamwork built up through months of working together. The steady attrition of our personnel in combat denied our men the teamwork they considered so essential, and we were forced constantly to draw upon our administrative staffs for aerial gunners, radiomen, bombardiers, and other crew replacements.

  Our air staffs lost invaluable subordinates rapidly, and our commanders cursed the necessity for breaking up their headquarters teams which had been developed over so many months. Before long the strain of sending out men every day to their deaths began to tell even on the top headquarters staff officers. It is one thing to know that you have a mission to perform, but it is another to stay behind, at a desk, when the pride of Japanese manhood dies because you have committed them to battle. Many of our top commanders would talk to no one for long periods of time; they could not help but reproach themselves for remaining alive at the expense of our young fliers.

  And yet, absolutely nothing could be done to alleviate the situation. American air pressure increased steadily; even a momentary lapse in our air defense efforts might lose us Rabaul and our nearby fields. The endless days and nights became a nightmare. The young faces became only briefly familiar, then vanished forever in the bottomless abyss created by American guns. Eventually some of our higher staff officers came to resemble living corpses, bereft of spiritual and physical strength. The Navy would replace as quickly as it could the necessary flight personnel, but failed at any time during the war to consider the needs of its commanding officers. This was an error of tragic conse­quence, for no leader can properly commit his forces to battle when he does not have full command of his own mental and physical powers. Neither did the Navy ever consider the problems of our base maintenance personnel, who for months worked like slaves. From twelve to twenty hours a day, seven days a week, these men toiled uncom­plainingly. They lived under terrible conditions, rarely with proper food or medical treatment. Their sacrifices received not even the slightest recognition from the government.

  The Naval General Staff failed also in its evaluation of our front-line fighting men, choosing to believe that all of our combat veterans were heroes. Clearly this was a suppo­sition without the slightest basis in reality! Courage is something which fluctuates widely; it is determined by a thousand large and small factors—the place and time of battle, the men with whom one serves, the caliber of enemy opposition, and so on. For the average pilot and aircrew member, the required mental outlook and physical stamina necessary for effective combat cannot last longer than a month under heavy enemy pressure. Some men, of course, do not lose any of their physical and mental stamina even when facing savage enemy air blows over a period of two months; these men, however, are the exception and not the rule. Should the demands of combat require that a unit be kept directly in combat for more than a month at a time, the flight personnel should be provided with rest periods at regular intervals. It is immaterial whether this rest period is no longer than a single day; even a “short break” has an excellent effect upon the men. Again our Navy failed to consider such aspects of the war, and many men who finally went down before enemy guns did so only because their physical and mental exhaustion had sapped their ability as pilots.

  For these and other reasons, I found on my arrival at Rabaul an astonishing conviction that the war could not possibly be won, that all that we were doing at Rabaul was postponing the inevitable. Our executive personnel at Rabaul were not deluded by promises of future successes; they were experts in military aviation affairs and had per­sonally undergone many combat engagements. As the months went by they watched the qualitative superiority of the Zero fighter fade before the increased performance of new American fighter planes which, by now, not only out-fought but also outnumbered the Zeros. There existed a growing feeling of helplessness before this rising tide of American might. Our men felt keenly the great difference between American industrial and military strength and the limited resources of their own country. Despite these con­victions, they could only continue to send our pilots and air crews into combat and to their deaths. Who could blame them, then, for the mental regression into spiritual apathy and defeatism?

  I found in my discussions with the 26th Air Flotilla flight personnel that they held the same impressions of futile combat, that further fighting could only postpone eventual defeat. The most astonishing reaction to the 2nd Carrier Division’s arrival at Rabaul was that the knowledge that the flotilla could return to Truk did not engender relief. Instead, many of the flotilla’s men could see only reproach in their replacement. They felt that they were being removed from the front line because their perfor­mance was unsatisfactory, that the Navy expected the 2nd Carrier Division to accomplish what they had failed to do. An attitude of this nature is dangerous, for it can lead in a short time to the spiritual disintegration of even the strongest army.

  As I took over my new duties as the Rabaul air staff officer, I reflected that to date I had been extremely fortu­nate. Although I had gone through many battles, I was never forced to remain under severe mental strain for undue lengths of time. Either the campaign developed in our favor, or transfer to other duties relieved me of any excessive worry. Because of this past experience, I
arrived at Rabaul in excellent physical and mental health.

  My own convictions as to the proper use of our air power differed from the Navy’s plan of operation at Rabaul. I was not entirely in favor of throwing our remain­ing carrier-based air strength, which had been trained specifically for decisive sea battles, into another one of the seemingly endless campaigns fought against enemy land-based air power. This was the twelfth specific occasion in which the Navy pitted our carrier aviation against enemy land-based warplanes, and it was the sixth such campaign for my own air group. Personally I believed this use of car­rier aviation to be wasteful; it could not produce any posi­tive results for Japan. However, these thoughts constituted my own personal convictions, not those of the Navy. Despite my own viewpoint, I could not justify allowing personalities to intrude upon my official status. My posi­tion as an officer demanded only absolute adherence to the policies of my Navy, and I would not do otherwise than to support to the fullest our efforts against the enemy.

  I knew that the defeatist attitude prevailing at Rabaul could only cause dissension among my own staff. I had to take every step to prevent the lethargy affecting the 26th Air Flotilla’s staff from being transmitted to my own group. Until I arrived at Rabaul, we permitted the replace­ment staffs to work together with the groups being relieved; the overlapping duties permitted rapid familiar­ization with the procedures of the base. In this case, however, I preferred not to allow this contact to occur, and as soon as my unit arrived at Rabaul I relieved the 26th Air Flotilla, permitting them to return at once to Truk.

  On January 25 the 2nd Carrier Division’s planes arrived at Rabaul. Rear Admiral Takaji Jojima assumed active com­mand of his forces. The admiral did not have long to wait before he tried the mettle of his pilots, for the very next day a powerful enemy force of approximately two hundred fighters and bombers attacked the Rabaul airfield. Admiral Jojima threw into the interception every available Zero fighter, totaling ninety-two airplanes. The Americans exacted a heavy toll. For many of the fighter pilots, this was their first taste of combat, and they faced experienced enemy pilots who flew excellent airplanes. Ten Zeros were shot out of the sky. The exorbitant loses did not permit us merely to record the dead pilots as having “crash dived.”

  Combat experience teaches that it is always impossible to predict the outcome of battles, no matter how extensive the planning and preparation. Unknown factors can dis­rupt even the most perfectly arranged operation, and it is beyond the ken of any man to predict accurately what shall comprise these factors. Despite their realization of the uncertainty which accompanies any combat operation, Admiral Jojima, and indeed the entire flight personnel of the division, had absolute faith in my ability to extricate our air groups from our precarious position. My past com­bat record indicated that certainly I was most likely to wrest victory from an enemy which now not only pos­sessed excellent and plentiful airplanes but which exer­cised unusually aggressive tactics. I admit willingly that my position as the Rabaul air staff officer caused me no end of personal anguish; there could be but one outcome to the war of attrition, and that would be in the favor of the Americans.

  The days passed in a blur. Every day we sent the Zeros up on frantic interception flights. The young and inexperi­enced student pilots had become battle-hardened veterans, their faces showing the sudden realization of death all about them. Not for a moment did the Americans ease their relentless pressure. Day and night the bombers came to pound Rabaul, to smash at the airfield and shipping in the harbor, while the fighters screamed low on daring strafing passes, shooting up anything they considered worthwhile target. So intense were the enemy attacks that we literally were unable to find time to attack their bases. Our losses mounted steadily, and the list of dead and missing pilots grew visibly. Throughout this enemy effort we exacted a heavy toll of bombers and fighters, but even our most suc­cessful interceptions failed to affect adversely the air offensive of the Americans. They threw in more and more replacements, and the ratio of enemy planes to ours widened steadily. Under such conditions the air division could not last much longer.

  It was obvious that so long as we continued the battle in its present fashion, the Americans would grind us under. A change was called for, and I recommended to Admiral Jojima what was to our air force a startling change in tac­tics. Lieutenant Commander Saburo Shindo, the division’s fighter-group commander and the former flight officer who had won a special letter of commendation for the outstanding initial victory of the Zero fighter in China on Sep­tember 13, 1940, assembled his pilots and passed on the new orders:

  “In the future you will no longer be required to engage enemy planes whenever they are encountered. You will attack or defend yourselves only when the battle circum­stances appear particularly favorable to you.”

  What sad words these were! How do our pilots determine what are “particularly favorable” circumstances? In the flashing, everchanging situations of air combat it is literally impossible to determine when you are in the better position to engage the enemy. The words come easily; the actions, with difficulty. It is a different matter with surface vessels; there, at least, the responsibility for engaging, or avoiding, combat rests upon a senior naval officer. I was fully aware of the fact that my air crews could not properly judge all the varying factors of air war which would permit them wisely to “attack or withdraw,” but I could not arrive at a better solution. Even the issuing of the new orders had a depressing effect, for to our men such words were clearly an official admission of our inferiority to the rampaging Americans.

  To counter the effects of the new order, I reinstituted small night offensive raids with single-engine Kates. At no time did I believe that the night attacks would affect noticeably the enemy’s northward drive, but the feeling of returning to the offensive would improve morale. The Kates attacked enemy transports in the Dampier Strait between New Britain Island and New Guinea. At times we sent Val dive bombers into the Tripoiru air base (just north of Buin), where they remained overnight and early the fol­lowing morning bombed enemy transports at Mono Island in the Treasury Islands south of Bougainville. Less often we sent out the twin-engined Bettys to hit enemy land installations. We could not muster more than twenty planes to use in these raids and the results, of course, were negligible.

  Ignoring our feeble bombing attempts, the enemy launched his newest invasion and put several thousand troops ashore on the Green Islands, north of Bougainville and one hundred and thirty miles from Rabaul. Danger to our Rabaul positions mounted rapidly with the accompa­nying increase in enemy air offensive operations. Our air losses became appalling. No longer did anyone at Rabaul harbor any doubts as to the monumental gap between the national strength of Japan and the United States.

  Every enemy raid was on a large scale. The bombers thundered over regularly, disdainfully flying in large for­mations in which weak defensive gaps were readily appar­ent. Had we taken advantage of these formation faults, we could have exacted a heavy toll of the enemy bombers. However, the enemy’s confidence was well founded! In the face of such large formations our numerically inferior Zeros were utterly helpless. Had the Zero fighter been superior in performance to the enemy planes, we might have been able to deal the enemy a heavy blow. But no longer could the Zero flaunt its performance, for the for­mer terror of the Pacific now ran a poor second to the Grumman F6F Hellcat, and could not hope to engage the Corsairs and Lightnings unless the enemy fighter pilots so desired. With basically the same fighter airplane we had used at the war’s beginning, we could not hope to do much against an enemy who pursued technological progress so prodigiously.

  There are other factors in aerial combat even more important than the quality of the individual opposing aircraft, and perhaps the most vital of these is having experi­enced pilots and air crews. After every mission the Americans sent out flying boats to areas in which their planes had fought, searching for and rescuing air crews which had been shot down and stood a good chance of surviving aboa
rd life rafts. Every lumbering flying boat, normally an easy catch for our fighter planes, went out on its search mission with nine to twelve escort fighters. Although their duties were extremely hazardous, the crews of these flying boats performed their missions gallantly, and there arose few occasions during the war when groups of men so consistently exposed themselves to multiple dangers. Our pilots could not fail to be impressed with these daring search missions and, despite the fact that enemy pilots manned the flying boats, our men regarded them as unusually courageous.

  On the other hand, although the Japanese high com­mand realized (perhaps in theory only) the value of saving human lives, and believed that every human life should be held as irreplaceable, they would not emulate the American rescue policy. Our naval commanders were so afraid of the possible sacrifices which might be the consequences of attempting to rescue our crews which were shot down that often we abandoned on the open sea those men whom we could obviously have saved. The naval command’s attitude toward the situation was that they could not tolerate the possible loss of a large flying boat merely to effect the cer­tain rescue of one air crew.

  I pondered this situation more than once. For this apa­thy toward rescuing downed pilots was not merely the atti­tude of the high command . . . our own combat men, the flying mates of the same men who were shot down and adrift at sea, would not, even under orders, take any unnecessary chances to save their lives. Lest this attitude be misconstrued as indicating that our men lacked com­passion for their friends, it should be added that they would not expect otherwise should they be the ones to be shot down. Any man who was shot down and managed to survive by inflating his liferaft realized that his chance for continued survival lay entirely within his own hands. Our pilots accepted their abandonment stoically. At any rate, the entire Japanese Navy failed to evince any great interest in rescue operations of this nature.