by Peter Albano
“Aye, aye, sir,” the gunner said, laughing to himself at Takii’s quick recognition of the old samurai adage and reference to The Hagakure (Under the Leaves), the handbook of the samurai where Brent had found it. Ensign Hayusa’s laughter was clear in the intercom. However, bringing up his glasses, Brent’s mood of sparkle vanished with the fighters. Hayusa’s laughter faded. The Zeros had disappeared. A great empty loneliness crept in. Where are you, Yoshi Matsuhara? Where are you? Brent asked himself, staring into a sky empty of everything except clouds and the red-white ball of the sun.
*
Commander Yoshi Matsuhara palmed the throttle of the Zero ahead two notches and enriched his mixture by pushing ahead the control lever on the quadrant attached to the left side of the cockpit. Pulling back on the control column and countering the increased torque with a feathery touch of left rudder, he watched his tachometer needle zoom past three thousand, his manifold pressure toy with the red line at eighty centimeters of mercury and his airspeed indicator reach three hundred forty knots as the new two-thousand-horsepower Nakajima Sakae IV engine roared and rocketed the light airframe upward like a berserk express elevator. Designed for one half the horsepower of the new engine, the Mitsubishi’s airframe and main wingspan had been strengthened to take the new stresses and loads. Yet, the Zero-sen was still the lightest fighter in the skies, almost a half ton lighter than its principal opponent, the ME 109 which also boasted a new power plant; the Daimler Benz Valkyrie II with 2,200 horsepower.
Yoshi had just sighted the B5N, Tora II, low and far to the north and west, and he was chuckling with thoughts of his big friend Brent Ross freezing in his cramped cockpit when the corner of his left eye had detected a movement where there should have been none. Then moving the control column to the left and balancing with the rudder, he had dropped his port wing, and just over the tip he saw a lone four-engined aircraft lumbering in a westerly direction and perhaps five hundred meters below his section. He knew the Americans still kept a small presence on Guam, their last base in the western Pacific, despite fuel shortages and nearly continuous warfare between Colonel Moammar Kadafi’s forces and the Japanese. He guessed the big plane was probably a commercial airliner en-route from Enewetak to Guam. But a good fighter pilot — one with longevity — assumed nothing. He had seen years of Arab trickery, deceit, and treachery, and a close reconnaissance was mandatory.
Sinking back into the bucket seat and pressed down into his parachute pack by g forces, the commander’s eyes widened as he watched the white needle of his altimeter wind clockwise with a speed it had never shown before. He was gaining altitude — the fighter pilot’s most precious commodity — at a rate that would have put the A6M2’s designer, Jiro Horikoshi, in a state of shock.
Glancing quickly to the right and then the left he grunted with frustration, finding his two new wingmen, NAP (Naval Air Pilot) First Class Masatake Matsumara trailing far off his right elevator while Ensign Subaru Kizamatsu was nearly astern. Both of the young pilots were slow, had lagged despite his wing-waggling and hand signals. He yearned for his old comrades from China, Shio Yoshida and Yozan Sakanishi, who had died in the great battles over the Straits of Malacca. Even their replacements, Akiko Yosana and Junichiro Tanizaki, had been better than Matsumara and Kizamatsu. But, Yosana and Tanizaki, too, had joined their ancestors over Tokyo Bay; Yosano shot to pieces by Johannes Friessner, Tanizaki murdered in his parachute by the American renegade Kenneth Rosencrance. At night when sleep was slow, he could still see Tanizaki’s tumbling body trailed by his shredded chute and whipping shrouds, plummeting into the Uraga Peninsula. Someday, Yoshi Matsuhara would gorge himself on revenge, kill the butcher Rosencrance. He hoped to do it slowly, face-to-face; burn the American, cut him, inflict exquisite pain, and savor the screams.
Commander Yoshi Matsuhara had spent so many years in the cockpit of a Zero-sen, the aircraft seemed to be an extension of his spiritual self. He never consciously moved a control. Instead, his concentration, the power of his mind seemed to attune itself to the kami (spirit) he was convinced inhabited the fighter. He thought of turning and the Zero turned; he thought of firing his two twenty-millimeter Orlikons and two 7.7-millimeter machine guns and they blazed to life. The control column, the rudder peddles, were extensions of his own limbs, fusing with his being and propelling him through space in pursuit of the emperor’s enemies. And he had killed many — so many. It began in China when he was a young ensign just out of flight school.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Commander Yoshi Matsuhara was a nisei with dual citizenship. Fiercely loyal to the emperor, each evening his father, Oto-san, sat with the young Yoshi on zabutons in the main room under an equestrian of Emperor Hirohito and studied Bushido (the code of the samurai) and the wisdom to be found in the Hagakure. In 1938, the young Yoshi returned to Japan and enlisted in the Naval Air Arm. A month after enlistment, he met the beauteous Sumiko Makihara and they were married after a short courtship — unusual for Japanese, but the war in China had caused the abandonment of many customs. After training at Tsuchuira, he was sent to China with the first squadron equipped with the Rei Sentoki Zero-sen. The dogfights took on the character of massacres, the slow Chinese Illusian 16s and Curtis P40s no match for the Mitsubishi. It was a happy time when Yoshi’s squadron shot down ninety-nine enemy aircraft while losing only two to antiaircraft fire.
After a year’s service, he returned to Tokyo where Sumiko presented him with a magnificent son, Masahei. Yoshi’s joy was unbounded, and he and Sumiko began to make glorious plans for their beautiful boy. Within two months, Sumiko was pregnant again. A month after his second son, Hisaya, was born, the young ensign was sent to Hitokappu Bay — a remote anchorage in the Kurile Islands about sixteen hundred kilometers northeast of Tokyo Bay. Although Yoshi had heard rumors of super-battleships and carriers for years, he was not prepared for Yonaga. As the whaleboat approached the behemoth — which loomed gray in the cold mists — Yoshi felt he was nearing a gray mountain. And indeed it was an island; a gigantic steel structure of eighty-two thousand tons, over three hundred meters in length and thirty-four meters at the beam. An incredible, breathtaking giant that could operate one hundred fifty aircraft and steam at thirty-two knots. “A steel Fujisan,” he had said under his breath as he climbed the accommodation ladder.
Here at Hitokappu Bay, Yoshi first learned of Kido Butai — the Pearl Harbor strike force. Seven carriers, Kaga, Akagi, Soryu, Hiryu, Shokaku, Zuikaku, and Yonaga were assigned to the force. But Yonaga was too large. With the usual paranoid thinking of the naval general staff, it was feared the great carrier would be too easy to discover and the seventh carrier was detached from Kido Butai and sent on a great circle north to the Bering Sea and the hidden anchorage at Sano Wan on the Chukchi Peninsula. From here she was to sortie on December 1 and join in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Tragically, the overhanging glacier slipped, covering the entrance, trapping Yonaga hopelessly.
For forty-two years the loyal samurai remained entrapped. Notwithstanding, morale remained high and the men maintained their equipment, their minds, and their bodies, waiting for the day of freedom — the moment they, too, could honor Bushido and carry out their orders. The moment came one summer’s day in 1983 when the glacier slipped away. Then came the attacks on ships and planes as the great carrier steamed on a southerly heading toward its objective. Finally, the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor where the Americans were found sleepily wallowing in their usual ineptitude.
On returning to Tokyo Bay, the horrified Japanese learned it had all been for nothing. The unthinkable had become reality. Japan had surrendered. Yoshi was nearly destroyed when he learned his wife and two sons had been burned to death in the great Tokyo fire raid of March 9, 1945. He withdrew into a venomous shell of bitterness.
Brent Ross came aboard that first day in the bay, and Yoshi hated the American instantly — all things American. Then the Chinese orbited their laser system and the world changed dramatically. The nuclear terror of the
Ivans and the Yankees was broken and Kadafi’s madness went worldwide. Then came the alliance with the Israelis and the bloody fighting in the Mediterranean and southwest Pacific. Now dozens of his friends lay at the bottom of the sea or were nothing but ashes poured into white boxes. But all the fine warriors had filled the most rigid demands of Bushido and Shinto. It is a cleansing act to give one’s life for the Mikado. All the gods of heaven will respect the spirit of the samurai who dies in a righteous cause, he had been taught. And an inviolable truth the adage was, indeed.
Over the years, fighting side by side with Brent Ross, Yoshi’s hatred eroded, gradually turning to respect and then genuine affection. The young American was brave and, in many ways, more Japanese than most of the officers on Yonaga. Then Kimio Urshazawa entered his life and Yoshi found love did still exist in this hate-filled world. But love died in a blast from a terrorist’s AK 47 in an ambush in Tokyo’s Ueno Park. Since Kimio’s death, Yoshi had hurled himself into combat with new recklessness: shinigurai, the Japanese called it — “Crazy to die.” He saw his friend Brent Ross become distraught with worry. But death was a reward, a purification. No one could argue with that.
Leveling off, he shook the cobwebs from his brain and studied the mysterious aircraft which was now a thousand meters below him and lumbering along at about two hundred forty knots. A Lockheed Constellation C-121. Unmistakable with its triple tail fins, long, slender nose, four huge 3,250 Wright turbo-compound radial engines. With a range of 3,400 kilometers, it was ideal for the long hops between island bases. It wore Pan American markings. There was no indication anyone in the stranger had seen the Zeros.
Yoshi’s five senses were fine-tuned to danger — so sensitive he seemed to possess a sixth sense that searched for threats when none seemed likely. A slight bank, change in pitch of a propeller, sudden acceleration, a shadow flickering in a cloud could all bring his head up. Something was wrong with the stranger and the alarms rang. He studied the fuselage where Plexiglas glinted from a dorsal bubble, and then he saw the outline of a door in the Lockheed’s side which spoke of an unusual modification he had seen on several Arab aircraft: a quick opening door that concealed a deadly Gatling gun. As the flight commander led his section in a wide sweep around the giant, it nonchalantly changed its heading to west and north — a heading which would take it to Japan. But Pan American had given up its Japanese service because of the fighting and the loss of a transport with all of its passengers and crew off Hokkaido. Could it be headed for Iwo Jima? Pan American had no service to that island, either. He would investigate.
Glancing at a chart attached to a clipboard strapped to his knee, he pulled his microphone to his lips and barked Yonaga’s code name. “Iceman. Iceman. This is Edo leader. Over.”
Immediately, a scratchy voice acknowledged in his earphones. Matsuhara continued, “Sighted a Lockheed Constellation with Pan American markings. Latitude eighteen, longitude one-five-one, speed two-four zero, altitude three thousand, on a heading of three-zero-zero. Am investigating.”
“Roger” came back.
The flight leader glanced from side to side and grunted with satisfaction — Matsumara and Kizamatsu were close on his elevators, precisely where they should be for the first time on the patrol. The commander disliked the radio because it told the whole world what he was thinking. Both his wingmen had heard his transmission and both acknowledged his signal of a single finger stabbed downward and a clenched fist punched upward twice, which meant a sweep around the mysterious plane by the leader while his wingmen remained on patrol high above. This could be a trap. He had seen the worm dangled before eager hunters before as far back as China. Turn your back, get lost in a reckless approach, and the skies very often rained enemy fighters.
After a quick glance upsun to assure himself no squared-off wing tips of ME 109s lurked there, Matsuhara thumbed the ring of the gun button from Safe to Fire, opened the throttle another notch, kicked left rudder, and horsed the stick back and to the left. Responding like the thoroughbred it was, the Zero lifted its red cowling and began to roll to the left into a splitess. Yoshi felt his stomach sink with the pull of gravity and the horizon dropped out of sight. Then he arced through the top of the roll and plunged into a dive, the horizon reappearing above his cowling and then his vision was filled with the blue expanse of the sea. He centered his controls and pointed the fighter at the Constellation which was five or six kilometers to the north and a thousand meters beneath him.
As he streaked toward the transport, he became uneasy. Then alarmed. The Plexiglas dorsal bubble had sprouted two black snouts and doors had been opened on her sides. Another Arab conversion? Perhaps even a bomber trying to sneak in over Tokyo Bay or seek out Yonaga and destroy her with a single stick of bombs. The Arabs and their German and Russian technicians were clever — had even converted old Douglas DC-3s to bombers. Now, there were no doubts; the multiple barrels of a Gatling were visible in the port door.
Yoshi’s stomach suddenly felt empty and his mouth was sour and dry — the way it felt the morning after too much sake. Death was there. Did he not seek it? Crave it to cleanse away the guilt of Kimio’s death? Strange that that insidious interloper fear should suddenly find a home in his stomach. Gritting his teeth angrily, he punched the Sakae to full military power and it roared like a predator smelling the kill, accelerating the tiny fighter to over four hundred knots in a blink. A diving Zero at full military power was a terrible gun platform. But a speeding fighter was also a difficult target. He would need every advantage the Zero could give him. He faced awesome firepower and he would be in range within a heartbeat.
The dorsal turret glowed cherry-red and tracers whipped toward him but dropped off. “Too far for thirteen millimeter, you amateurs,” Yoshi snorted disdainfully. Then tracers stormed from the port door, which blazed a fearsome orange like an open blast furnace as the pilot cleverly banked the huge plane, giving the crew of the Gatling a shot. A three-barrel twenty-millimeter, these tracers did not drop off, streaming and smoking past the Zero like a hail of glowing meteorites.
The fighter was bouncing and vibrating, its control surfaces buffeted by pressures that nearly froze the rudder pedals and made the control column as rigid as a tree trunk. It took all of the commander’s strength to bank away from the Gatling’s fire and bring the glowing reticle of the electric gunsight to the center of the fuselage of the huge plane. Suddenly it filled all three rings of his range finder. He had his killing angle. He thumbed the red button.
Jarred by the recoil of two twenty-millimeter cannons and a pair of 7.7 millimeter machine guns, the little fighter slowed twenty knots and, already tortured by its dive, seemed to be shaking itself to death like a man with epilepsy. Empty shell casings bounced against the guards and spilled down their chutes and into the slipstream gaily like a hail of glistening yellow confetti. Holding the button down and clenching his teeth, Yoshi felt an atavistic glow of pleasure spread deep within him — a hot, visceral feeling he had not known since Kimio’s death.
It was only a four-second burst at one-quarter deflection. But the Japanese pilot never wasted a round. His laugh was wild and high as he saw his shells grind through the great fuselage like a buzz saw, chopping off pieces of skin plating and hurling them into the slipstream like paper in a gale. A breath on the stick and the sledgehammer blows tore through the turret, smashing it in a blaze of glittering Plexiglas and red-gray shower of gore as a shell exploded the gunner’s head.
A little right rudder and he flashed past, too fast for the starboard Gatling to make an accurate full deflection shot at a target moving at over four hundred knots. Nevertheless, the door glowed with huge orange flashes and a cloud of smoking firebrands dropped off toward the sea. Yoshi laughed as he pulled back on the stick with all of his strength. The enemy’s rounds were all behind him.
The commander’s laughter turned to groans as at least six g’s pounded him down into his seat, the little fighter bouncing and groaning, her main wingspan bendi
ng upward with the enormous load. His head was suddenly a lead slug and he felt the skin of his cheeks sag downward, stomach and abdomen bulging against his flight suit. Then as he pulled back on the stick with all of his strength, his vision blurred and rockets flashed across his retinas. He felt as if a giant were pounding him into his seat with an enormous sledgehammer. Screaming to relieve the pressure and shaking his head to clear the fog, he continued to pull back on the stick until the vast blue mat of the Pacific dropped from view and the cowling climbed above the horizon.
The Constellation should have been directly above him, but it was not. Instead, he caught sight of it fleeing far to the west. Easing the control column and working the rudder peddles, the commander brought the fighter onto a course of interception. Slowly, the underside of the big plane grew in his range finder. “Prepare to join Allah, Arab pigs,” he said under his breath. The belly of the Lockheed filled the first ring. It was almost in range.
Then the expected bank and the Constellation began to circle to its right as the pilot tried desperately to bring his starboard Gatling to bear on his tormentor. At the moment Yoshi punched the button, the Gatling boiled to life like a volcano spewing lava. His shells blasted into the fearful Gatling, four twenty-millimeter shells blowing it from its mount. He watched it fall from the aircraft and tumble toward the Pacific like junk. His laugh was maniacal, out of control. He felt the heat in his groin grow.
Punching the stick to the right and balancing with rudder, the Japanese barrel-rolled to the right while the enemy, slowed by hits to his fuselage that had blasted off big chunks of aluminum exposing “U”-stringers and frames from the door all the way back to the shattered turret, banked carefully to his left with his speed cut by at least fifty knots. Yoshi felt a familiar crystal-clear clarity, a charge of energy that caused his hands to tremble and his breath to be short. He wanted to kill his enemy with a knife, his hands, his teeth. He was almost disappointed with the knowledge he would be forced to destroy him with gunfire.
