Blossoms In The Wind: Human Legacies Of The Kamikaze

by Sheftall, M. G.

  While the young man ultimately to thank for everyone elses’ pleasure-seeking opportunities was himself certainly not immune to their allure, being within eight or nine hours rail travel from home proved to be the greater temptation for Hideo Suzuki. The ensign’s priority was getting boodle from the lavishly stocked Kōnoike PX to his family in Atami, who like civilians everywhere in Japan, were seriously hurting for foodstuffs by early ’45. Suzuki would try to get out every weekend he could with a big suitcase packed to bursting with bean jam cakes, preserves, whiskey, chocolate, cigarettes, and other luxuries. He would spend all but a few hours of the twenty-four-hour passes riding on crowded trains or making the interminable series of tiresome connections at stations to and from Atami, but he always thought it was worth the trouble to see his family’s smiling faces every time he arrived home with his bag of goodies and, more importantly, with himself still in one piece. Playing out that scene again and again, as many times as he could get away with it, was something Suzuki never tired, just as he never tired of trying to stretch every hour at home into a small eternity.

  *****

  It is November 9, 2002. Hideo Suzuki is sitting across from me at a banquet table. He is lean and long-faced for a Japanese of his generation, with large eyes deep-set and intense behind a high-bridged nose. His is almost a Levantine face, and it would not be incongruous on a man named Irving or Sal sitting on a park bench in Brooklyn, chomping on a green cigar while he bragged about his grandchildren and complained about his gall bladder. His shiny eighty-year-old head is fringed with snowy white hair, and this imbues him with an aura of Ebenezer Scrooge at first glance, but his surface crustiness is confirmed as benign by the deep smile creases in his cheeks and the laughter he lets out frequently. It is not the nervous laughter Japanese often display to smokescreen uncomfortable situations, but sincere and straight from the belly. He refuses to suffer fools gladly and will not hesitate to speak his mind when he thinks someone is out of line. It is clear that he is at the point in his life – which must be wonderfully liberating for this former warrior of the rigid Japanese corporate culture – when he is no longer obligated to camouflage his feelings for appearance’s sake. He seems breezily contented with this state of being.

  We are in the rear dining room of a large, multistory restaurant in Yokohama’s Chinatown, venue of the annual Jinrai reunion that has ended about an hour ago. Some of the decorations from the event are still up, and the backdrop for our table is a large imperial navy battle jack – the Rising Sun radiant with sunbeams – nearly as big as a garrison flag, taking up almost an entire wall. We are joined at our table by other Jinrai veterans, including another Waseda alumnus, Tokuji Naitō, who was also Suzuki’s flight school classmate and one of the second group of naval reserve ensign pilots who arrived at Kōnoike in December 1944. Naitō-san was a lit major at Waseda, and the bookish orientation suits his mien. His bald pate, narrow eyes and enigmatic smile give him the countenance of a Buddhist abbot. If we were in a one-on-one situation, I might halfexpect him to hit me up with a few Zen riddles. He is an introspective, intellectual type, meticulous in speech and manner. I imagine these traits must have served him well in his career as a Tokyo municipal bureaucrat.

  A decidedly Falstaffian and incandescent Akinori Asano is also here, emitting high-amplitude wavelengths from the far-red end of the spectrum. He has just finished his “the time I rode the marudai trainer” account in a performance well seasoned with appropriate sound effects and hand and body gestures. The story garnered some chuckles and remarks in a “Can you believe they put us in those things?” vein from the other old men at the table.

  “How many drops did you make?” I ask naïvely.

  Evidently, I have triggered some kind of stock sequence about to be played out here, because everyone at the table suddenly looks at Asano-san, expectantly.

  Asano-san assumes an expression of exaggerated umbrage, his head weaving slightly side to side. In an instantaneous and somewhat surreal mental connection, I recognize what I am seeing as Ralph Kramden a nanosecond away from threatening Alice with the moon.

  “You only had to do it once,” Asano-san huffs, and several men join in to complete the couplet, almost on cue. “And once was enough!”

  The table breaks out into loud guffaws now, and I feel my ears turn red. A middle-aged waitress clearing dishes from another table steals a look at us. I sense that she wants us to leave. But she is going to have to endure a few more war stories before that happens.

  Naitō-san is the only person at the table not laughing.

  “I almost crashed on my own drop,” he says, oddly dispassionate, perhaps trying to rescue me from my temporary embarrassment. “I went into the rough at the end of the runway. Luckily, I missed the trees.”

  The conversation takes a turn through time and landscapes, war and peace. The mood at the table becomes somber. Faces and places are recalled, and Suzuki and Naitō muse on the losses that ravaged the ranks of the Ōka reserve ensigns.

  “You know, we came this close to getting completely wiped out,” Suzuki-san says.

  “Just as promised,” he adds with a tired chuckle.

  Suzuki-san chuckles alone, though, and I wonder if the semantic significance of his remark is responsible for the slightly uncomfortable silence that sits over the table now. He has not claimed, as many Japanese veterans are wont to do, that it was “the war” or “the Americans” or “the times” that should be held responsible for the death of his comrades. Instead, what has just been suggested – or at least this is what my non-native speaker’s ears have picked up – is that it was the onus of obligation implied in the “promise” that had done the killing.[105] Without the nod of an expectant benefit receiver – without agreement from the second party – a “promise” is still merely a proposal. If the pilots assumed some portion of the responsibility for their self-immolation upon rising to the tokkō battle cry, then the rest of the responsibility was shouldered by everyone else who agreed with the idea – who expressed gracious thanks and sent the boys off with speeches and fanfare, never thinking to lift a finger to stop what was happening or even wonder aloud if there were reasonable alternatives to this slaughter.

  In the case of the Ōkas, none of the young men who drew circles on their ballot papers for tokkō slots at their training bases really knew what they were getting into until they took a walk down to the flight line at Kōnoike and saw the winged torpedoes for the first time. And by that point, it was too late and they were too proud to turn back. They were young and brave and wanted to help win the war – or at least turn back the American onslaught and “win the peace” – any way they could. The code of loyalty socialized and drilled into them from childhood demanded that they leave the details of how that could best be accomplished up to their superiors. The Japanese state in those days was blessed with millions upon millions of young Japanese men like this to draw upon. Tokurō Takei, Akinori Asano, Hideo Suzuki and Tokuji Naitō were four of them, and at one point in their lives, they felt the best way to serve this state was by agreeing to become human bombs.

  13 Looking For A Few Good War GodsIn September 1943, Hideo Suzuki was only a few weeks away from his war-accelerated graduation[106] from Waseda when his attention was drawn to a Navy Ministry notice posted on a campus bulletin board. Recruiters scheduled to visit the college were looking for naval aviator officer candidates. Like many of his classmates, Suzuki was facing imminent and somewhat less-than-welcome conscription into the army upon the completion of his studies.[107] Understandably, he was quite receptive to options at this time, and the course outlined on the navy poster seemed to offer him a much more glamorous and considerably more comfortable way of serving his country than tending to Mongolian ponies as a buck private on the Manchurian border, colder than a welldigger’s ass nine months out of the year, scorched and fly-plagued the other three.

  Suzuki made it safely to the navy recruiter’s desk and had his name on the dotted line before the a
rmy could get its hooks into him. Joined now by his classmate Tokuji Naitō, the Waseda men passed their flight physicals and paper exams for the program with flying colors. They were in naval uniform before the month was out, reporting for duty as cadets in the thirteenth cycle of the Kaigun Hikōka Senshū Yobigakusei (“Naval Aviation Specialized Training Reserve Student Course”) at Mie Naval Air Station near Nagoya on September 30, 1943. The “Yobigakusei” course – as it was called in abbreviated form – was like a Yokaren for officer candidates,[108] combining the basic training needed to turn soft college boys into fearless warriors with the accelerated, intensive instruction in basic aviation subjects necessary to get the cadets ready for Flight School. Cadets were commissioned as naval ensigns upon successfully meeting graduation requirements at the end of an eleven month-long training cycle.

  After finishing Yobigakusei in July 1944, Suzuki and Naitō went to Flight School at Tainan NAS on the southern tip of Taiwan. When mid-term branch destinations were handed down, Suzuki was assigned to carrier attack planes, which meant that he would be expected to handle either the big Ryusei torpedo planes or the equally bulky Suisei dive-bombers the navy was now using. Naitō, on the other hand, had been lucky enough to win a slot in fighters. After getting his wings in October, he could look forward to a job in the front office of a Zero or, even better, of a snappy new Kawanishi Shidenkai armed with four devastating 20mm cannons, powered by a humongous 1,800 horsepower engine and purportedly superior to the Hellcat in speed, climb and roll rates and maneuverability. He would be able to knock some Americans down in such a mount. In the meantime, while preparing for future battlefield glories, the aviator candidates put in the prerequisite Akatonbo stick time together and struggled to survive endure being parboiled in the sun and steam of a Taiwan summer and eaten alive by carnivorous mosquitoes.

  One night in August, an unscheduled assembly was called after evening mess. The cadets and faculty proceeded to the base budōjō[109], where they found Lieutenant Commander Shunsaku Takahashi (INA ’18), waiting to address them. At forty-nine, Takahashi was perhaps a bit long in the tooth to still be languishing at his present rank, especially for an Etajima man, but he seemed to have enjoyed a rewarding career nonetheless. In addition to being the Tainan Flight School commandant, he was also a published poet and the lyricist of Polydor Japan’s wildly popular 1940 propaganda hit Getsu, Getsu, Ka, Sui, Moku, Kin, Kin (“Five Day Work Week In The Navy: Monday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Friday”), a kitsch masterpiece about the joys and wholesome rigors of naval life that had since entered the national pantheon of perennial pop favorites.[110] If Takahashi’s naval career itself had been something less than stellar, he could certainly take pride in having achieved immortality as a lyricist in his lifetime.

  Normally a peppy, fire’em’up super-motivated type, Takahashi was not his usual self on this particular evening. He was sober-faced and somber-toned. His eyes were red, as if he had just finished having himself a good long cry in private before splashing some water on his face to compose himself. Whatever it was he had called everyone to talk about, it was obvious that he was dreading it.

  After the assembly was formed, Takahashi suddenly ordered all only children, first sons and fathers to leave the premises, instantly reducing the ranks by about thirty per cent. The other pilots and trainees waited in silence until the excused personnel were all gone. When the door closed behind the last man out, Takahashi stood up on a calisthenics leader podium and began talking about the exceedingly sorry state of the war situation.

  “As we speak a secret super weapon that could turn the tide of the war is in the final stage of development. Just one of these will be powerful enough to sink a capital ship. We need volunteers to put their lives on the line and operate these weapons.”[111]

  There were raised eyebrows among the cadets as the euphemisms flew fast and furious but the grim message gradually sank in.

  “Everyone already knew by that point that ‘put your life on the line’ meant ‘sacrifice your life’,” Suzuki-san says. “There wasn’t a lot of subtle nuance involved there.”

  “The enemy is closing in,” Takahashi had continued. “We must defend the home islands and turn back the Allies. High Command believes that these secret weapons are the only way to do this. The weapons are now in the final stage of development. Those who pilot them will lose their lives. Nevertheless, the navy needs volunteers for this program. This is strictly voluntary. But keep in mind that in volunteering, you could help turn the tide of the war.”

  The assembly was dismissed and the pilots filed out of the martial arts hall. But where they would have normally been BS’ing and laughing as they made their way back to the barracks, tonight they were meditative and silent.

  Suzuki did not even make it back to the barracks to think things out. He sat down right outside the entrance to the gym, stared up at the night sky and tried to sort out what he was going to do about what he had just heard. Back in his quarters for the Lights-Out headcount, he still had not made up his mind.

  Takahashi had told the pilots they had three days to respond, and Suzuki ended up taking nearly every last minute of that time to think it over. In the end, though, the idea that his country was losing – and losing badly – was decisive. Adding to this determination was the element of panic thrown into the equation by the imagery of a senior officer like Takahashi having to come to the men like that and ask – almost plead – for volunteers instead of just giving orders. An act so incongruous with navy tradition could only foreshadow pain ahead. Things had to be really, really bad if they had come down to something like this.

  Suzuki thought about the oath of loyalty to Emperor and country (which were supposed to be one and the same entity, really) he had taken when he entered the Yobigakusei program, and once again when he accepted his commission as an ensign in His Majesty’s Navy. He figured that he and his comrades had sworn away any right or claim to their own lives the moment they put on a navy uniform. Their lives belonged to Japan now, and if fulfilling their duties to the best of their abilities meant dying for the country, then so be it.

  At the time, Suzuki and the other Tainan flight school trainees were still raw and green and many hundreds of flying hours away from achieving proficiency as pilots in the highly specialized tactics of their respective conventional aviation branches. Under such circumstances, Suzuki desperately needed to believe that the new wonder weapon – whatever it turned out to be – offered an honorable alternative way for him to keep his promise to the country and make the most significant contribution to the war effort possible given his limited capabilities. One man’s sacrifice to take out a fleet carrier or a battleship? Magnificent. Thinking things through this far, he seemed to have no other choice but to volunteer. He handed in his circled chit to Lieutenant Commander Takahashi.

  Suzuki had always hated to think of his family constantly worrying about him. Maybe it would be better for all concerned to just end things quickly. That way his family’s suffering – and his own – would be lessened. He figured he was probably going to die, one way or another, before the war was finished. Why settle for that death being on someone else’s terms? Why leave it to fate – perhaps even dying without knowing it was going to happen, like in an accident, or getting caught in a sudden air raid, or shot down by Americans on a conventional mission? Whatever this “super weapon” was, if it was as good as promised, it was a golden ticket to being able to go out in a blaze of glory. Suzuki signed up for the “special attack” program with a clear conscience, confident that he would bring great honor to his family and, most importantly, make his mother proud.

  Eighty-year-old Suzuki-san laughs somewhat forlornly here – a slow huh-huh-huh with some Eeyore in it – as he recalls the naïveté of an idealistic young man who took it for granted that his mother would share in his heroic sentiments.

  “Of course, I don’t think there’s a mother in Japan now who would think such a thing, but back then, thing
s were different.” he says, still with some forlorn chuckle in his voice. “A mother, at least with the face she wore in public, was obliged to appear happy and grateful to the Emperor and country for giving her son such a fine way to die. Of course, even back then, I’m sure that in their hearts, all mothers wanted their sons to come home alive. But they couldn’t express such things to anyone outside the family. It would be considered defeatist, and unpatriotic.”

  While mothers at the time may have secretly prayed for their sons’ safe return home, they were publicly encouraged to pray for their honorable death in battle. Citizens’ committees, Army Reservist Association branches (Zaigō Gunjindan)[112], school boards and other local propaganda organs urged families in their communities to prepare kamidana or butsudan[113] in their homes, and honor their living sons in uniform as they would a deceased family member. The message was clear: Your son is gone forever. Live with it. A grateful nation shares in your pride.

  Under a constant audiovisual bombardment of such imagery and messages through cinema, music, newsprint, posters, and communal agit-prop, the populace seemed to fall sway to this mass psychology. It was not uncommon for mothers in urban areas – where there were always neighbors within earshot – to send their boys off to war saying “Don’t let me be the only mother on the block to not to have a son in Yasukuni.”[114] Neither was this nihilism limited to civilians. Sentiments like “Don’t worry, I’ll be home safe and sound” were rarely heard from servicemen sons leaving for war. The salutation “Please think of me as already dead”[115] was a common one in the strictly censored letters they sent home after arriving at the front.