Zero

by Masatake Okumiya

  It is impossible to determine accurately all the bombing effects because of the terrible state of chaos to which Japan was reduced by August of 1945. More than 30 per cent of our total aircraft industry suffered heavy damage; these attacks, we estimate, denied us the production of more than seven thousand planes annually. We lost 70 per cent of our total output of airplane propellers, which alone was a devastating blow. By the war’s end the bombers had caused a total shutdown, at least temporarily, of our highgrade lubricating-oil capacity. While we had a surplus of refining capacity, by August 14, 1945, the B-29s wrecked our eleven most modern refineries. We could hardly assess the overall effect upon our industry merely by adding the total square footage of factory space destroyed. Many plants left standing were useless, denied as they were the materials and parts to work with, and suffering from a shortage of laborers who had fled to the hills in terror of future raids.

  By the end of July some ninety cities had become literal ash-choked funeral pyres. Only four major cities in the country, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Sapporo remained undamaged, or had experienced only a few stray bombs. Our industry had been strangled, and even the rel­atively undamaged plants in Tohoku and Hokkaido stood quiet and unproductive. The machines lay idle because the plants no longer received working materials and, further, because they lacked the means to transport their products to Honshu. The blanketing swarms of carrier-based planes paralyzed our communications and all but halted sea transportation between Hokkaido and the mainland.

  Once the Americans had attended to our larger cities, they went after the smaller industrial cities in an unbe­lievably methodical fashion. They concentrated their attacks on cities with less than one hundred thousand population as their primary targets. An example of these raids, the bomb tonnages of which indicate their terrible effects, follows:

  Perhaps the overall effect of the bombings against the homeland—an incredible story—is best summarized in the statement of a Tokyo newspaperman. When he was ques­tioned as to B-29 crew reports of damage to Tokyo and other cities which had suffered the most intensive aerial bombardment in history, the reporter replied:

  “Superfortress reports of damage . . . were not exagger­ated: if anything, they constitute the most shocking understatement in the history of aerial warfare.”

  Japans’s four most critical industrial centers were the areas of Tokyo-Yokohama; Osaka-Kobe, Nagoya, and Kita-Kyushu. What happened to these cities is representative of Japan’s condition by the time our country surrendered. The five largest cities, not including Kita-Kyushu, received nearly half of all bombs dropped by the enemy Twentieth Air Force. So thoroughly gutted were the major sections of these cities, with a combined total of 103.22 square miles destroyed, that the Americans eliminated them as targets.

  CHAPTER 27

  Carrier Planes Raid the Homeland

  THERE IS LITTLE DOUBT that the primary reason for the American invasion of tiny Iwo Island (Iwo Jima) was to reduce the loss of B-29s flying against Japan from the Mariana Islands. We knew that the great four­engined bombers were running into serious trouble on the return flights after attacking the mainland; dozens of crip­pled planes, unable to fly the sixteen-hundred miles from Japan to Saipan, were ditched in the open sea. We expected the Americans to make an all-out assault against Iwo Jima, for with the island in their possession the enemy could land his crippled planes on the eight-mile-long haven. (Admiral Ralph A. Ofstie: “The reason for the bloody seizure of Iwo Jima . . . was the pressing need to have an additional field for emergency landings. . . .”) The enemy could also employ Iwo as a springboard for his long-range fighter planes which escorted the B-29s on their bombing missions.

  It was only a matter of time, Tokyo reasoned, before the island would be attacked; further, the attack would undoubtedly involve a preliminary strike elsewhere to draw off our air power. As we had anticipated, the attack came. On February 16, 1945, three days before the inva­sion force assaulted Iwo Jima, American carrier-based planes opened a massive series of air blows against the mainland. A total of one thousand fighters and bombers swept over military air bases and civilian aircraft factories, chiefly in the Kanto (Tokyo) area. The enemy Task Force 58 assembled sixteen aircraft carriers, eight battleships, sev­enteen cruisers, seventy-five destroyers, and other vessels to support the carrier strikes. The following day an addi­tional six hundred planes returned to batter our targets, dropping in the two-day period a total of five hundred and thirteen tons of bombs, in addition to the attacks with machine guns, cannon, and rockets.

  Japanese Imperial Headquarters announced that our defending fighters and antiaircraft guns had destroyed at least two hundred and seventy-five enemy planes, while we lost only seventy-seven fighters. The American Navy’s official combat reports stated otherwise, claiming that their planes had shot down 322 Japanese planes, strafed and damaged 171 on the ground, and had lost 49 to our defenses. There is a wide difference in these two reports, as seems to have been the case throughout the war. Certainly our claims appeared to be as widely exaggerated as were the Americans. We never did ascertain accurately all the losses, due to the chaotic condition of our communications and chain of command at the time. In my opinion, as a responsible officer of Japanese Naval Headquarters, the actual losses of both combatants appeared to have been approximately the losses each opposing force announced; i.e., Japanese loses probably amounted to seventy-five planes, and American losses to forty-nine planes.

  One cannot, however, contest the fact that the attack of the sixteenth was a complete surprise to our homeland defenses. Tokyo expected the carrier assault, but not directly against the heart of the homeland. Consequently, the Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters overwhelmed our Army and Navy fighter planes, both numerically and qualita­tively. Our fighters fought a difficult defensive battle against overwhelming odds and against planes which brazenly swept low against every possible ground target.

  There was one especially bright note which served to overcome the general oppression of an overwhelming enemy success. There was no doubt that the Americans had achieved their original objective and that our battered air force could do little to halt further mass carrier raids. The majority of our pilots were inexperienced and conse­quently were at a decided disadvantage against the Hellcat pilots.

  However, Flight Warrant Officer Kinsuke Muto of the Yokosuka Navy Air Corps put up a brilliant singlehanded defense against tremendous odds. About noon of the first day the enemy planes attacked, fighter-plane pilots await­ing orders at Atsugi Navy Airbase sighted a single Shiden-Mod. fighter, fleeing southward over Yokohama and pursued by twelve Hellcat fighters. There could only be one outcome to the chase, and the pilots waited for the Shiden fighter to fall in flames.

  However, the unexpected happened. As the Hellcats closed the distance between their groups and the Shiden, the Japanese fighter suddenly turned sharply and at full speed raced directly at the enemy planes. The Hellcats for­mation scattered before the unexpected maneuver and the thirteen fighters swung into a wild melee of twisting and turning airplanes. Taking advantage of the fact that, in a battle of twelve planes against one, the enemy force often “gets in its own way,” Muto hung to the tail of a Hellcat, pouring cannon shells into the Grumman until it blew apart.

  The remaining eleven Hellcat pilots frantically tried to “latch on” to the elusive Shiden, and their tracers could be seen filling the air about the agile Japanese fighter. Muto saw his opportunity, turned directly into one of the Grum­mans, and pressed the head-on attack. His cannon shells shattered the plane and the pilot bailed out. By now Muto played what was obviously his superior flying skill to the hilt; abandoning his defensive maneuvers, he became the attacker and in short order two more Grummans plunged from the sky. Four down! The remaining eight Hellcat fight­ers abruptly broke off the engagement and fled the area.

  The incredible battle ended and a tired but jubilant Kin­suke Muto brought his fighter, riddled with enemy bullets, to a safe landing at Yokosuka
air base. Pilots watching from Atsugi did not know the name of the pilot in the Shi­den fighter, but after watching the Grummans being shot out of the sky, they quickly identified him as Muto.

  This was only natural. Muto was famous as one of the leading Navy aces. He shot his first enemy plane out of the air at least eight years before this battle, as a fighter pilot flying in China in 1937. Muto was assigned to the Yoko­suka Navy Air Corps as a combat test pilot, and on Febru­ary 16 had taken one of the new Shiden-Mod. fighters up on a test flight against enemy fighters. He left his base and circled about the Tokyo area in a search for enemy planes. Failing to meet the expected American fighters, he turned to return to Yokosuka when he noticed the twelve Hellcats diving upon his fighter.

  On February 17 the enemy carrier planes made two heavy attacks against the Tokyo area, one morning and one afternoon raid. The Americans flew almost unopposed against their objectives, and the majority of the fighters and bombers machine-gunned, rocketed, and bombed their targets with little opposition. Again, the only bright spot of the day was that relating to a single fighter pilot, this time Lieutenant (J.G.) Sadanori Akamatsu, the Navy’s senior fighter pilot ace. Flying a Zero fighter from Atsugi, Aka­matsu shot down two Hellcats over Tokyo Bay. When the enemy planes returned for their second attack, Akamatsu intercepted two Grummans directly over the Atsugi field and shot both planes out of the air for a one-day tally of four enemy fighters destroyed.

  When flown by thoroughly experienced pilots like Muto and Akamatsu, the Zero could prove a formidable opponent even against the versatile Hellcat; however, the greater majority of our fighter pilots were green youngsters with little or no combat experience. In their hands the Zero was no match for the Grumman fighter. There existed no doubt in our minds that we had long since lost qualitative superiority to the Americans.

  Our mainland air defense force, fully occupied with interception of the increasing B-29 attacks, lost all power to cope with the enemy carrier air raids. Our defending fighter force could be well described as completely helpless. This situation arose in great part from the fact that Japan lacked a single operational fighter plane which could match the Hellcat fighter, and stood little chance of seeing its prototype planes manufactured in sufficient quantity to improve our situation.

  Without superior defending fighter planes our mainland air-defense force was virtually useless. We could throw our dwindling reserves against the B-29s and the carrier attacks, shoot down some planes, and still in no way diminish the severity of the enemy air blows. Whatever number of planes we could destroy would not cause the enemy to slacken his efforts to pound Japan into absolute submission. By the spring of 1945 the B-29 attacks reached catastrophic proportions, and the great bombers thundered over our cities in furious day and night assaults. We could do relatively little against these system­atic and large-scale bombardments, for we had never built a satisfactory high-altitude fighter plane. The Americans caused unimaginable havoc, especially when bad weather grounded our planes. Our fighters sat impotent on their runways while the hundreds of B-29s roared overhead, using their radar bombsights to smash with uncanny accu­racy at our factories and cities.

  The price the Americans paid for Iwo Jima was high; forty-eight hundred dead, fifteen thousand eight hundred wounded, and four hundred missing. The tiny island, however, paid handsome dividends. From March 4, when the first crippled B-29 landed on the still-crude runway, to the war’s end, a total of 2,251 Superfortresses made emergency landings. The crew members in these airplanes, most of which never could have returned to Saipan or Guam, amounted to 24,761 men. In the bitter defense of Iwo we lost 22,322 men killed.

  When the Iwo conflict ended on March 13, our losses in patrol boats in the southern sea rose to alarming figures. Enemy planes scoured the ocean in search of our patrol vessels and made these small ships their special targets. Soon we could no longer count on the survival of a single patrol boat in the area and were forced to rely for warning of enemy attacks entirely upon the radar reports of our southern island outposts. Under these conditions we were wide open to attack at any time by powerful enemy carrier forces.

  As we expected, the carrier planes returned. Between March 18 and 21 the enemy fighters and bombers swept almost at will over the mainland, pouring their shells, rockets, and bombs into every conceivable target. Not even the remotest areas of Japan were safe from the marauding planes.

  At this time, the Navy’s 343rd Air Corps, considered the most powerful fighter plane unit of the entire Army and Navy, was stationed at the Matsuyama air base in Shikoku. Equipped mostly with the newer Shiden fighters, the plane which had become the Navy’s great hope for a carrier-based fighter, the 343rd was manned by outstanding Navy fighter pilots, all of whom had considerable combat expe­rience. The commander was Captain Minoru Genda, an able and experienced leader who had made the preliminary draft for the Pearl Harbor attack and who had served as an air staff officer of Imperial General Headquarters for the preceding year.

  On March 18 and 19 the enemy carrier planes raided the Kure Naval Base. They met completely unexpected opposition from Genda’s pilots. Combining extensive air-combat experience with a fighter plane which featured a maximum speed exceeding 400 mph and effective armor plating, they caused heavy losses to those planes they encountered.

  This constituted the only decisive victory of all the Japanese fighter-plane units against the American carrier-plane attacks. Tokyo announced that for the two days of fighting in the Kure area our land, sea, and air defenses destroyed 119 planes, and that the majority fell victim to the 343rd Air Corps. Again, we at Naval headquarters could not determine the actual number of enemy planes destroyed, but obviously Genda’s men provided effective opposition.

  Before the month was past the terrible and one-sided air conflict entered another and equally disastrous phase. Heavy bombing by carrier-based and Army planes shattered defense installations on Okinawa and, following sev­eral weeks of protracted aerial bombardment, enemy troops landed on the island. From the invasion day of March 25 until two months later, our defending fighters fought furiously against the carrier planes and the relentless B-29s. By now it was a familiar story; the enemy exacted a murderous toll from our available aircraft and air strength continued to dwindle.

  On March 21 one of our reconnaissance planes pho­tographed the first North American P-51 Mustang fighter on Iwo Jima. On April 7 the Iwo-based VII Fighter Com­mand launched the first Mustang fighter attack against the mainland. One hundred and eight P-51s escorted B-29s on a daylight mission against Tokyo, and rapidly proved their superiority over our fighters by shooting down twenty-one defending planes. We destroyed two Mustangs.

  The new P-51s flew only ten escort missions since, after their arrival on Iwo, the B-29s resorted mainly to attacks at night and in foul weather. (After the war we learned that weather proved to be the P-51s’ greatest foe; on June 1, returning from an escort mission against Osaka, twenty-four of the Mustangs disappeared in a seething caldron of violent weather, and two other planes collided and crashed.) On April 16 the Mustangs began their first series of sweeps against our ground installations, and by the war’s end we counted thirty-three such missions. These attacks denied us the use of many of our airfield facilities in the Tokyo-Nagoya-Osaka area (Okinawa-based P-51s shot up airfields in Kyushu and Shikoku). The dispersal procedures forced by the strafing fighters complicated even further our maintenance problems, which already had reached monumental proportions. With most of our air-fields reduced to wreckage, the fighters turned their attention to railroads, powerhouses, factories, and coastal shipping.

  By May the eventual loss of Okinawa was clearly foreseen. The relentless drive of the Americans, which had started with the Guadalcanal invasion, was now on the very doorstep of the homeland. There was little doubt in our minds that the next great invasion of the war would be the assault against Japan itself.

  To prepare for this final calamitous blow, Imperial Gen­eral Headquarters ordered ou
r remaining fighter planes to ignore future enemy air attacks, except in emergencies which would be determined by Tokyo itself. We were under new orders now; to save as many planes as possible for the final defense against the enemy invasion fleet. We feared that were we to continue our aerial defense operations against the B-29s, the carrier raids, and the Mustang sweeps, our defending fighter force would be annihilated. We could not face the enemy fighters and bombers without sustaining critical losses.

  By June, enemy medium and heavy bombers from Oki­nawa bases began to raid the Kyushu area. Coordinating their attacks with these blows against our southernmost island, the B-29s increased the bomb tonnages dropped on our cities by leaps and bounds. On August 2 alone, Tokyo received reports that more than eight hundred and fifty of the giant raiders were over the mainland.

  July became a nightmare of carrier-plane attacks. On July 10 the enemy Task Force 38 steamed off Japan with fifteen aircraft carriers, nine battleships, nineteen cruisers, and sixty-two destroyers. Warships shelled shore installa­tions and the planes roamed at will over the mainland. Eight days later a British force of four fleet carriers, one battleship, six cruisers, and eighteen destroyers joined the Americans. With our pilots under orders not to engage in combat, the enemy planes reduced literally every target they flew against to wreckage, and the battleships and cruisers hurled waves of shells into industrial targets.

  The finish was near. Japan lay completely helpless before the tremendous tidal wave of enemy fighters and bombers. Our fleet was through. Our pilots, choked with rage at their inability even to dent the wall of fire and steel hurled at us by the enemy, waited for the final day of reck­oning when enemy troops would storm ashore.