Blossoms In The Wind: Human Legacies Of The Kamikaze

by Sheftall, M. G.

  No boy of his generation could ever forget the glory heaped upon the navy by the mass media, community leaders and even educators in the wake of the Pearl Harbor raid. Films and popular music sang the navy’s praises, and schoolchildren sang songs in class about the nine gunshin (a fallen combat hero officially elevated to special posthumous deification as Shinto “war god”) who piloted the midget submarines in the Pearl Harbor attack, and whose pictures were featured in newspapers, posters and schoolbooks.[75] But the imagery of the Japanese fighting man that most captured the public imagination of adult and child alike in those heady days of Yankee-humbling victories was that of the boy-man Yokaren graduate Zero pilot, flying off of carriers in windtossed seas to vanquish the foe, like Momotarō the Peach Boy[76] off to subdue the longnosed demons on Oni Island. There was not a boy in Japan in 1943 who did not spend some part of any given day daydreaming about flying a Zero and shooting down bad guys.

  Full of patriotic determination to do his part for the war effort, and bound to go out – if he had to go out – as one of these glorious Zero pilots, Tokurō finally worked up the courage to discuss his Yokaren plans with his parents. Hesitant about their son’s decision, but proud of his bravery and of the fine filial piety he demonstrated in his selfless desire to ease their financial burden, his parents had no choice but to give their assent. With the help of a local recruiting officer, they began the paperwork for Tokurō’s Yokaren application in the spring of 1943.

  The Yokaren program had held a romantic niche in the public imagination since its well-publicized inception in 1930, when 5,800 boys from around the country had competed for a mere seventy-nine slots – an acceptance rate that put even the vaunted service academies to shame. While horrendous combat attrition rates suffered by its aviators had since forced the navy to expand Yokaren to seven schools located throughout the country[77], winning a slot in the program was still a heady accomplishment for a boy in 1943, especially if he had grown up in an impoverished or rural area without the educational advantages of well-heeled urban peers. The Yokaren acceptance rate had climbed from prewar single-digit percentages to 30 or 40 percent by the time Tokurō applied[78], but the lowered admissions standards in no way lowered the prestige of the program in the public eye, and the distinctive seven-buttoned dress tunic and anchor-with-cherry-blossom collar badge of its cadets were instantly recognizable icons popularized in countless film dramatizations, musical references and propaganda posters. When Tokurō received notice in the late summer that he had passed his academic ability tests and physical examination to win a slot at the Yokaren campus at Matsuyama Air Station, he was an instant hero in his hardscrabble Hamamatsu neighborhood.

  As Tokurō enjoyed the last balmy weeks of his carefree civilian life, the season’s blockbuster hit at the movie theaters was Kessen No Ōzora E (“Onward To The Final Decisive Air Battle”), a navy ministry-sponsored Toho Studios film starring superstar Setsuko Hara about the life of cadets at the Tsuchiura Air Station Yokaren campus. The Japanese subsidiary of Columbia Records[79] enjoyed yet another smash hit in their successful catalogue of propaganda songs with their recording of the film’s theme song, “Wakawashi no Uta” (“Song of the Young Eagles”). The lyrics can be considered fairly typical of the genre:

  Young blood of the Yokaren,

  Seven-buttoned blouse, anchor and cherry blossom device.

  To fly again today in the skies of Kasumiga’ura,

  Amidst the roiling clouds of hopes and dreams.

  Burning vigor of the Yokaren,

  My arms are steel, my heart a ball of fire.

  It’s time to leave the nest and cross restless seas

  To deliver a blow to the heart of the enemy.

  I admire the Yokaren graduates who have gone on to war,

  My blood is up when I hear of their feats of arms.

  Training and more training to sharpen fighting spirit,

  No enemy can prevail over Yamato Damashi.

  Dauntless Yokaren,

  Wings of will are wings of victory.

  I want to send my mother a picture

  Of the enemy ship I will sink.[80]

  In the closing days of the summer of ‘43, the song could be heard everywhere, and there was a hardly a person in the country immune to the charm of its macho-yet-cute imagery of rosy-cheeked boy warriors, eager to fight and just as eager to write their mothers regularly.

  On October 1, 1943 – the day before student draft deferments were cancelled by national decree[81] – Tokurō arrived at Matsuyama Naval Air Station on the southwestern tip of the island of Shikoku to begin an eight-month-long basic aviation training course with 3,274 other classmates as a member of Yokaren Cycle Kō-13.[82] During the first six weeks of training, Tokurō and his classmates were constantly evaluated by the Yokaren faculty for flight aptitude, mental and physical toughness and leadership ability. When this period was up, the cadets were divided into pilot and non-pilot (observer, radioman, etc.) aircrew groups, after which each group trained separately, pursuing conventional classroom studies in a science-focused academic curriculum, as well as more practical job-related skills such as basic aerodynamic theory, aircraft and engine maintenance and repair, and communication and signals (including semaphore flags and Japanese syllabary Morse code). Assigned to the pilot group, Tokurō found the classroom work challenging but not intellectually overwhelming. When combined with all the P.E. time set aside in the curriculum for building up young bodies and toughening young minds, though, the pace of a non-stop sixteen-hour Yokaren day could be brutal. P.E. sessions consisted of calisthenics and running for stamina, gymnastics with a lot of flipping and somersaulting to simulate the stresses and spatial disorientation of aerial combat, and long sessions of judo and kendo to heighten martial spirit and sharpen the eye. Despite the pressure cooker of cadet life – not to mention the lingering separation anxiety of fourteen to sixteen-year-old boys away from home for the first time – there were few problems with insomnia at Yokaren. Most cadets were asleep before their heads hit their thin mattresses every night at Taps.[83]

  If any of the boys had shown up at the Matsuyama campus expecting to be behind the stick of a biplane trainer anytime soon, they were quickly disappointed. The closest thing to actual flight training they would get during the next eight months was in the cockpit of a wooden glider. Launched slingshot-like down a shallow grade slope by cadets tugging on elastic ropes attached to the nose, the glider would give the trainee a few precious seconds of airborne stick time before sliding to a stop at the bottom of the hill, after which it would tugged back up Volga boatman-style for the next trainee’s turn. But even these decidedly modest glider sessions were few and far between, and most of the cadets’ “flight training” consisted of hours spent in wooden chairs with jury-rigged pedals on a simple pivot and broomhandle “control sticks” for the trainees to hold between their legs during their imaginary flights. For “aerial combat training,” a cadet would aim through a ring-and-post gunsight at a model airplane dangled by a classmate on the end of a string. Actual flying time in a powered aircraft would have to wait until after the cadets graduated from Yokaren and moved on to flight school.

  By far the least beloved aspect of the training was the day-in, day-out regime of corporal punishment arbitrarily meted out by the Yokaren faculty for the slightest infractions or shortcomings, real or imagined. This came as an exceedingly nasty surprise for boys like Tokurō, who had opted for the navy thinking they could avoid all those sadistic noncoms in the army they had heard so much about, and expected to be trained as cosmopolitan gentlemen warriors who wore crisp blue uniforms and never forgot to take time off for afternoon tea. Unfortunately, brass band accompaniment for formal dining was never more than a dream, and in the Imperial Japanese Navy of late 1943, the concept of group responsibility was as constantly drilled, slapped, smacked and beaten into the service’s basic trainees as it was in the army. The message was as simple and clear-cut as a sock in the gut: if one pers
on screws up, everybody pays for it.

  Some of the punishments were almost whimsical, if a bit embarrassing, such as being forced to recite nonsense or sing at loud volume in front of others, or being lambasted with eloquent streams of cuss words and withering put-downs by the NCOs. Other forms of punishment would have to go under the “cruel and unusual” category, like being subjected to interminable deep knee bend sessions, or having to hold an arms-extended push-up position for what seemed like hours, or being made to sit in tubs of ice water. And no one was ever safe from a sudden visitation of what the NCOs liked to call ippatsu omimai or “a top o’the morning howdy-do,” which was a full force punch to the jaw of an unsuspecting trainee, sometimes for no apparent reason at all.

  “You know we only hit you because we love you,” a noncom would inevitably snarl over some sprawled teen who had just crumpled to the ground after stopping an out-of-the-blue haymaker. “But combat is one bad surprise after another. You have to get used to it.”

  “Human Seabag” was a bizarre version of something like musical chairs, in which cadets would have to jump and squeeze into the cubbyholes built into the wooden barracks walls where their seabags were normally stored. On command from an NCO, the boys would scramble over each other in a flurry of asses and elbows, stepping on faces, heads, stomachs in their rush to complete this human beehive routine. The more acrobatically adept boys could be in a tight fetal position in their cubbyhole within two or three seconds, but it did not matter. There were always slowpokes or guys with high cubbyholes who couldn’t get in quickly enough. This would of course piss the noncom off, and everyone would be ordered to line up against the ends of their bunks, stand on their tiptoes and proffer their buttocks for yet another dreadful session with a wide, flat wooden cricket bat known as “The Morale Stick” or simply “The Paddle”[84].

  Some NCOs began their punishment sessions with disclaimers of the “this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you” variety, but there were plenty of bastards who openly enjoyed what they were doing, not even bothering to hide their snide smirking or muffle their laughter as they let fly with punches or laid into Morale Stick sessions with gusto. But differences in the psychological profiles of the punishers aside, the noncoms were for the most part equal opportunity abusers, and the black eyes and fat lips they meted out with such generosity were so commonplace that these injuries barely merited comment from either cadets or faculty members. And there were never, ever, any questions or even raised eyebrows from the few commissioned officers who flitted so infrequently and unobtrusively against the backdrop of Yokaren life. The campuses were noncom-centric universes in toto, and officer types for the most part steered clear of the details of their day-to-day operations.

  Despite its gauntlet run of trials and tribulations, Yokaren was by no means a nonstop eight month-long haze session of hell and privations for its cadets. One bright point in the cadet’s otherwise austere lifestyle was the food situation at the Yokaren schools, which was downright luxurious compared to what the civilian population was beginning to have to deal with by late 1943 and early 1944. There was a well-stocked PX on the Matsuyama campus that the Yokaren cadets were allowed to use on Sunday afternoons, and the boys were paid a stipend that was sufficient to stuff their bellies full of sweets and other snacks if they were of a mind to use their precious few hours of weekly free time for this purpose. When family or friends came to visit from the outside world, any but the worst gluttons and spendthrifts usually had enough wherewithal and boodle on hand to press much-appreciated packages of precious goodies into the arms of guests before seeing them off at the gates.

  Food was not the only escape the cadets had from their mind numbing, back breaking and often infuriating daily routine. Even at its dreariest, Yokaren was interspersed with occasional happy flashes of fun and joviality, and most boys formed bonds with their fellow comrades-in-hardship that were as deep and loyal as those formed by men in combat. Perhaps, as many Yokaren graduates surmise sixty years later, that was just the point of all the harping, hazing and misery in the first place. The program’s organizers and administrators may not have been overflowing with the milk of human kindness, but they knew how to take youths – some of whom cried themselves to sleep every night their first few weeks at the schools – and turn them into some of the most motivated and determined fighting men in the world in just eight months. The NCOs that dedicated themselves to making the cadets’ lives hell knew that no matter how strong a warrior’s patriotism might be, he would fight harder and face death more resolutely alongside brothers he has laughed and suffered with than in the midst of strangers with whom he has shared nothing.

  Dying was a topic that Tokurō and his classmates were understandably reluctant to spend much too much time dwelling on, despite the pro Mikado et patria mori message barrage of songs, movies, and rah-rah speeches Japanese boys of their generation had been exposed to from the crib up. But given the fact that they were now members of His Majesty’s armed forces serving in the middle of the most savage war the nation had yet faced, the notion of death claiming many of them before they reached their sixteenth birthdays was not beyond the realm of possibility. While such a fate was horrifying to contemplate for boys whose chins had yet to know a razor and whose lips might never feel the brush of a girl’s sigh, most embraced the notion that there was something glorious and romantic about their imminent destruction as long as they were making this sacrifice for a cause that would ultimately prevail.

  While this “cause” had somehow metamorphosed from Pan-Asian hegemony to a simple matter of national survival while everybody was too busy thinking about other things, this considerably more modest but infinitely more crucial military goal still seemed entirely within the reach of the Japanese fighting man. The Yokaren boys believed this in their hearts, and everything they read in the papers, were told by the radio and saw in the newsreels reassured them that there was no reason to think otherwise. Taking the Japanese media accounts at face value, the Americans were reeling under blow after blow from the Emperor’s young war eagles, and would never be allowed to set foot on the Japanese home islands. The war might very well go on for years and years still to come, but Japan would not and could not lose. Defeat was unthinkable.

  During a downtime bull session between training sessions one morning in early 1944, Tokurō Takei and his squadmates were let in on news that landed like a bombshell on their fragile eggshell minds. The instructor that morning was an NCO who was an object of intense hero-worship by the cadets. A dashing combat veteran pilot in his mid-twenties, he was one of the few laid-back members of the faculty at Matsuyama, and not surprisingly, the boys loved him and hung on every word he ever said. The conversation that morning had started with an innocuous enough query to the pilot from one of the boys along the lines of “What is it like to be in combat?” The answer that followed was the first honest assessment of Japan’s war record and present situation that the boys had ever heard.

  “We’re losing the war,” the pilot had blurted, instantaneously wiping away his charges’ admiring smiles.

  Avoiding the cadets’ eyes as he continued, the pilot explained the reason why there were now so many Yokaren campuses around the country, and so many more cadets. It was not because naval aviation was getting bigger, as everyone was being told. It was because they were losing so many pilots[85]. The situation was bad, had been headed south since the Battle of Midway almost two years earlier, and was only getting worse.

  Battle of Midway? The boys had heard about it, but only in the context of a decisive rout of dastardly American aggression.

  The NCO went on to describe the grim realities. Four carriers had gone down in the battle, he said. Hundreds of irreplaceable aviators were lost. He knew all about this, because he had been there, and seen it with his own eyes. And in terms of sheer numbers, what had happened in the meat grinder of the Southwest Pacific during the previous year had been even worse.

  While this news was bad e
nough, the realization of how massively the public was being deceived by the authorities about the progress of the war was somehow even worse. Tokurō never really believed anything about the war he read in the papers, heard on the radio or saw in the Nichiei newsreels after that. It was a devastating blow, and from that day on, his worldview took on a decidedly grayer hue.

  11 I Wanted WingsOn May 25, 1944, modest graduation ceremonies were held for the cadets of Yokaren Cycle Kō-13, Matsuyama Naval Air Station Campus. Out of 3,275 boys who had entered the Matsuyama program some eight months earlier, 1,180 were graduating as pilot candidates, and 1,610 as aircrew candidates. The other 485 boys who originally entered with the cycle had since fallen by the wayside through sickness, injury or failure[86] to otherwise meet graduation requirements.

  Tokurō’s training company of 170 new pilot candidates, now officially designated as members of Flight Basic Training Cycle 38, shipped out the same day on chartered train cars for Ōmura Naval Air Station in Nagasaki Prefecture. At last, the boys were going to get that chance at the stick of an Akatonbo biplane trainer they had all been dreaming about for so long. They were going to be naval aviators. Headed for flight school!