Blossoms In The Wind: Human Legacies Of The Kamikaze

by Sheftall, M. G.

  He finally opted, with some misgivings, to keep flying straight as long as he could, relying on his aviator’s watch, airspeed indicator, compass, and map to tell him when he would be over water and it would be safe to try to duck under and out of the cloud cover. All that was left to do now was to keep his fear in check, rely on his instruments, and pray like hell that his fuel would hold out. Under perfect conditions, the Ki-51 had a range of about a thousand kilometers – twice the distance of tonight’s flight – but there was no telling what the weather, headwinds, and, of course, the abnormal bomb loadout were doing to the engine’s fuel consumption rate.

  Yoshitake checked his heading, watch, and map once more before gently pushing forward on the stick.

  As the plane dropped out of the fog, perfectly flat slate gray horizons fading to black appeared in all directions. He was over water, headed south-southeast. Negros Island would be coming up in a few minutes. The sooner the better, because the weather had taken a decided turn for the worse. The rain was now a torrential downpour that was battering the plane like hail on a tin roof, raindrop splashes turning the canopy into a shroud of colorless kaleidoscope glass. Visibility was nearly obliterated, almost as bad as before. The overloaded plane’s center of gravity was all over the place, yawing the airframe this way and that. Trying to fly through this junk was like being blindfolded with surgical gauze and shooting whitewater rapids on a grand piano.

  Crossing the Negros coast at low altitude, Yoshitake kept his eyes peeled for anything that even remotely resembled a landing strip. He headed for some flickering lamplights he could just make out through the driving rain and found himself over an airfield that looked more like a small lake than a runway. The lamps were arranged in the code symbol for LANDING IMPOSSIBLE. Another row of lights just below these formed an arrowhead shape pointing northeast. Yoshitake took the suggested heading and was over another field in less than two minutes. The lamps here ordered him to LAND WITH CAUTION, and more lights roughly marked the edges of a grass and dirt airstrip only slightly less soggy than the first one.

  There was no way he was going to try to land in a swamp with this 500kg bomb strapped to his belly. He circled around to find a spot to ditch the bomb and ended up dumping it, fuse unarmed, into a copse of trees at the far end of the field.

  Crap! All this way and all this trouble for nothing!

  He pulled the Ki-51 around into a landing pattern and lined up between the rows of runway lamps to bring her in. He dropped his landing flaps, eased forward on the stick to bring the plane into a proper glide path, and prayed, cutting the engine and pulling back on the stick to “flare” to near-stalling speed at the last moment before touchdown. The wheels hit the ground hard and the plane was instantly swamped in muddy brown water that went all the way up and over the canopy and even into the cockpit. A ground crew ran over to help the drenched Yoshitake out of the cockpit when the plane rolled to a stop. He was informed that he had landed at Talisay Airfield, five kilometers northeast of Bacolod. He was at the wrong airstrip.

  Leaving his plane with the ground crew, he slung his kit bag and katana over his shoulder and reported to the base HQ officer-in-charge. “Konna tenki de, shikata ga nai, ne,” the officer said with a shrug. Getting caught in this weather was nobody’s fault. The officer made the necessary entry about the bomb loss in the base logbook, then handed off the soggy second lieutenant to an orderly.

  Yoshitake hopped a shuttle truck leaving for the main Bacolod area officers’ billets, which were located in an old mansion in the town of Talisay. When he arrived, he found his squadron mates already there at a party in the mess hall hosted by the commander of the 2nd Air Division, Lieutenant General Sai’ichi Terada. Joining the gathering, Yoshitake had to endure some good-natured ribbing about his seemingly neverending engine woes, but he was delighted and relieved to be with his comrades again, and they were happy to see him, too. Two more stragglers – Itō and Itoi – were due down from Pollack in the next day or two. When they arrived, the Sekichō Unit would be together again, at last. Hopefully, the brass would wait long enough for that to happen before cutting attack orders. It did not take long, however, for Yoshitake to find out that this was not going to be the case. There was a reason for the party, and a reason why the Sekichō Unit members were the guests of honor – they were going out on their mission tomorrow morning.

  The party was joined by four lost lamb stragglers from the Ichi’u Unit on engine-repair layover at Talisay and a semi-celebrity guest, Corporal Yūji Sasaki[65], who had been pulled from a shot-down bomber wreck as the sole survivor of the Banda Unit’s disastrous first and last mission on November 12th[66]. Now languishing in personnel paperwork limbo for reassignment to a new unit, the haunted young man’s body language sent a clear LEAVE ME ALONE message that his fellow guests, with few exceptions, were none too put out to accommodate.

  With the notable exception of the taciturn corporal, who hardly said two words the entire evening, hosts and guests alike seemed to be in high spirits. There was plenty of saké, laughter and the obligatory hometown culinary travelogues of which the Japanese are so enamored. Discussion of family, however, was strictly verboten, as was any intellectually weighty, overly sentimental or sexual topic. Fallen comrades could be recalled fondly and mourned in passing during conversation, but there was no rumination over mortality itself or regrets expressed by the pilots over their own unnaturally accelerated and imminent demise. If the death that awaited most of the present guests within the next few hours or days was preying on anyone’s mind, these concerns never saw air. Corporal Sasaki aside, everyone was careful to maintain a fairly convincing simulation of gaiety. A passing observer would have to be forgiven for mistakenly thinking that this was a festive celebration of some sort instead of the last supper of doomed young men.

  The party broke up around midnight on an upbeat note. Laughter and slurred, off-key army songs echoed along the hallways of the old mansion as guests filed back to their rooms for a night that, for most of them, would feel interminable but would still be over far too soon.

  9 Attack OrdersYoshitake and his somewhat groggy squadron mates were awakened before dawn by orderlies with urgent news: recon planes had spotted a large American supply convoy threading Surigao Strait and heading northwest, most likely for Ormoc. All Sekichō Unit personnel were to report to Bacolod ASAP for takeoff within the hour.

  After gathering their gear, Captain Takaishi and the others boarded transport to the airstrip while Yoshitake phoned Talisay Field from the orderly desk and asked about the condition of his plane, which he planned to take for a hop flight to Bacolod in time to fly the mission with his comrades. The mechanic on the other end of the line broke the news to the young lieutenant as respectfully and gently as possible. Muddy water from last night’s rough landing had completely fouled the engine and it would take several days to repair the damage. Yoshitake would not be going on the tokkō mission today. Numb with shock, his mind flashed back to Sasaki from the party last night; like that sad corporal, he would now have to spend some unspecified period of purgatory in a billet somewhere – probably this one – with the faces of his dead friends haunting his dreams. And in the end, he would die with strangers.

  The tears fell bitter and hot as he hung up the phone. He did not even try to hide them from the orderly.

  Yoshitake changed out of his flight suit and hitched a ride on the next truck to Bacolod. He arrived at the airfield just in time to find the other eight Sekichō Unit members, resplendent in full flight gear and Rising Sun hachimaki headbands, lining up at a long, white cloth-covered table in preparation for a saké toast with Lieutenant General Terada. A large and reverent audience of staff officers and enlisted ground crew had gathered to watch the proceedings. Many of the men held small Rising Sun flags. Several rear echelon field grade types strutted about with their hands clasped behind their backs, trying to appear important and involved. The whole event was being photographed by a Nichiei cameraman who w
alked around the venue taking shots from different angles. The pilots were asked to hold a pose with their glasses raised for a toast. For several more shots, they were asked to stand closer together and smile for the camera.

  Yoshitake witnessed the proceedings in the grip of an emotional funk that was equal parts grief, disappointment, admiration, and envy. Tears came for the second time that morning as the Sekichō Unit boys filed past Lieutenant General Terada for firm handshakes before trotting off to their planes. Nearly everyone else present was weeping, too.

  Ōi, one of the last pilots on the handshake line, picked out Yoshitake in the crowd and ran over to him. Slapping Yoshitake on the shoulder, he pulled a small bottle of whiskey out of a flight suit pocket, took a slug, then put it to his friend’s lips.

  “I’m going to go on ahead of you, Yoshitake,” he said, tears running down cheeks creased with a beaming smile bizarrely out of place on his normally stoic face. “And I’m going to put on a real show. Just you see. Don’t be too late, OK?”

  Yoshitake tried to speak, but could not. All he could manage was a nod. Ōi grinned back in response, his blood up and his face glowing with it. He drained the last of the whiskey in a long pull and smashed the empty bottle on the ground with a dramatic flourish before turning his back on the living and running off to join the soon-to-be-dead in their Ki-51s.

  Engine ignitions fired sporadically and, one by one, the planes coughed to life on the flight line with thick puffs of black exhaust. Cries of Banzai, Ganbatte (“Do your best!”), and Tanonda-zo (“We’re counting on you!”) rose from the onlookers, who moved forward in a collective surge as the planes began to taxi for takeoff. Some well-wishers waved their caps or small Rising Sun flags. Others stood with their arms frozen over their heads in the banzai gesture, like sideline referees or cheerleaders in some sporting event. Yoshitake stripped off his uniform jacket and waved it over his head, screaming the names of his comrades as Mitsubishi engines roared into overboost for the takeoff run and the planes Doppler-shifted down the grass strip to rise up into the fragrant morning air.

  As if lingering for an encore, the flight made several circuits over the throng of teary-eyed onlookers, tightening up the formation and corkscrewing for altitude to clear the saddle between Mandalagan and Silay to the northeast. When the last plane caught up, the flight straightened out into a file and flew away, the harmonic drone of eight Mitsubishis at full throttle fading out with a melancholy echo as the planes got smaller and smaller against a pastel orange sunrise. Yoshitake kept shouting and waving until the airplanes disappeared over the horizon. As his jacket fell to his side in the deafening silence, he was overcome by the most profound loneliness he had ever experienced.

  Temporarily without orders or assignment, he was free to go back to the officers’ billets in town. After another call to Talisay to check up on his plane (“Nothing to report yet, lieutenant. You just called an hour ago.”), he made a beeline for his bunk to pull the blanket over his head and hide himself away until he felt like dealing with people again. He was not sure how long that would be, but he had four or five more hours until he would be expected to show up for afternoon mess, so he had at least that long to wrestle with his demons and grieve in relative solitude.

  Half-an-hour into his long morning’s journey into afternoon, he heard footsteps in the hallway stop by the door.

  “Yah,” a silhouette in the doorway said before entering the room.

  Hearing a voice he had no business hearing, Yoshitake sat up like a shot as the hairs on the back of his neck went rigid. Blinking in disbelief, he realized that he was looking at his squadron mate Mitsugu Adachi, who had just taken off from Bacolod this morning, less than an hour ago.

  Impossible! Adachi was dead – or at least supposed to be.

  But here he was, in the flesh.

  “Bet you didn’t think you’d be seeing me so soon, eh?,” Adachi said, his matinee idol face twisted with into a sardonic sneer. He threw his gear down in a heap and sat down on a bunk with his lowered head in his hands.

  Yoshitake looked at the slumped figure before him with a mixture of joy at seeing his comrade again, pity because he knew exactly what the man was feeling right now, and relief because Adachi’s unscheduled return meant that there would be a fellow Sekichō Unit buddy to pass this time in tokkō purgatory with. Yoshitake felt a bit ashamed of this last sentiment, but nevertheless, knowing that he was not going to be alone at the end was like feeling a ray of warm sunshine after weeks in cold gloom.

  “Engine?” Yoshitake asked.

  Adachi nodded, still avoiding eye contact.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Yoshitake continued. “We’ll make it next time.”

  The squadron mates stretched out on their cots and spent the rest of the morning reminiscing about better times. Combat reports of the morning’s mission came in later in the day, but information about results was spotty. The escorts may have seen some transport ships hit, but they could not be sure. The only matter that could be confirmed was that Captain Takaishi and the others who had flown all the way to the targets were now gone forever.

  *****

  Yoshitake and Adachi spent most of the next four days standing around and waiting for their engines to be fixed. They lent a hand when they could, but mostly they just spent their time talking, racked out on their bunks or running engine checks whenever the repair shop called with promising reports. Adachi’s engine ran well, but Yoshitake was not happy with the condition of his own. It was spitting out more smoke that it should – even with Marianas gas – and was low on rpm’s and manifold pressure. Of course, the mud from that hard rainy night landing was to blame. Yoshitake mentally kicked himself every time he heard its wheezing ignition system groan through another start-up test.

  With crossed fingers, Yoshitake ferried the plane over to Bacolod on the afternoon of the seventh, trailing an intermittent stream of black smoke most of the way.

  Ito and Itoi flew in from Pollack that evening, briefly bringing the Sekichō Unit contingent at Bacolod up to four members. The reunion was a welcome respite from the tedium of the previous seventy-two hours, but it would prove to be short-lived. Ito was ordered out on a solo tokkō mission the very next morning with no explanation and was never seen again.

  Late typhoon season torrential rain moved in early the next morning and fell virtually non-stop for the next seventy-two hours, completely shutting down all flight operations at Bacolod. While the precipitation certainly did not help with anyone’s boredom issues, it was not entirely unwelcome. If the Japanese could not fly, it meant the Americans could not, either. Work on Yoshitake’s engine could continue apace.

  *****

  An orderly came around to the junior officers’ rooms after mess on the evening of the eleventh. Orders had just come in from Bacolod: more American convoys were expected to be headed for Ormoc in the morning, and a tokkō mission would be thrown together and sent up, weather allowing, the moment anything was sighted. Yoshitake, Adachi and Itoi from Sekichō Unit and two Ki-43 Hayabusa[67] fighter pilots, one each from Hakkō and Enshin units, respectively, were to report to Bacolod Flight Ops at 0600 as flight line standby pilots. A truck would be waiting in front of the billets at 0530 to take them to the airfield.

  The Sekichō Unit pilots spent the rest of the evening sharing a little saké before turning in around midnight. The rice wine did not help Yoshitake get much better than a miserable hour or two worth of restless sleep interspersed with visions of home, nocturnal visitations from dead men and anxious glances at the glowing dial of his aviator’s watch as the final hours of his life slipped away. Creaks throughout the night from the other pilots’ cots told him that he was not the only insomniac in the room.

  *****

  Yoshitake is groggy but tense on the shuttle truck to Bacolod this morning. The faces of the other passengers are drawn and tight in the blue-gray light, their eyes bloodshot. No words are exchanged on the way to the field.

  T
he downpour of the past three days has tapered off to a light drizzle by the time the truck pulls up in front of the flight ops shack. Visibility is still lousy, but the horizon is going orange in the east and the dark blue ridges of Panay are emerging from the morning mist across the Guimaras Strait. The field is by no means socked in. When the sun comes up in another hour or so, it will no doubt burn the clouds away. After that, there is bound to be a mission.

  Yoshitake is surprised to find that he feels relieved by this prospect. He is too heartbroken to fear death anymore. Most of his friends are dead, Japan has as good as lost the war, and he is sick and tired of being sick and tired about that. Death will be a release to be welcomed, not a mortal end to be dreaded. And if by dying like this he will be able to take down a few hundred of the enemies who have humiliated his country, then all the better. If he feels any fear or nerves right now, it is only a fear of failure, of letting down his comrades, or of having to return to base in shame again for some stupid reason or another, like engine problems or a fuel leak. That is just not an option this time. He’ll ditch in the sea and ride his plane down to a watery grave before going back to those lousy billets alone again.

  An operations officer is waiting on the porch of the shack as the pilots hop off the shuttle truck. Recon planes have spotted another American convoy heading for Ormoc. Assuming a takeoff time of 0700, the convoy can be intercepted in the Camotes Sea after threading the Canigao Channel. A mission will be on as soon as the weather clears, and corrected headings for the mission will be provided at that time. The pilots are ordered to aim for large troop ships to maximize American casualties. Warships – trickier targets – are to be left for the navy planes to deal with.