Category KAMIKAZE

t times even now the terror of Kamikaze fluctuated, even seemed to fade. After all, we reminded ourselves, there were many ways one could die. The bombs were coming often now, and we were learning what it was like to scramble like rats for our holes. Some­times the enemy would sneak through our radar screens, and the alarms would scream providing little or no warning. Now we knew what it was to feel the ground shudder with explosions, to cower in dust-choked craters, while the slower men were often blown apart. Once I had seen two laborers running, frantically, the bombs dropping directly on top of them. I closed my eyes then opened them. Nothing remained but new craters.

Regularly now our hangars and assembly plant were being strafed and dive-bombed by Hellcats, P-51 Mustangs, and light bombers. Then one fatal day in June an immense flight of B-29’s pulverized Hiro and nearby Kure Navy Port. The warning had sounded thirty minutes be­forehand, and because of their numbers, every available pilot had taken

off to preserve our remaining aircraft. But after that bombing there was virtually nothing left of Hiro, no base to which we could return. Consequently, we had to make the long and sorrowful flight to Oita Air Base in northeastern Kyushu.

It was there that I became a suicide escort. Today very few of us remain—the only ones who can testify to what happened out there with the American ships in the Pacific, who can describe how the doomed pilots acted and probably felt at the final moment.

Life at this base became increasingly grim, yet even so it was fascinat­ing to note individual reactions. The punishment of earlier days was over. Tested and proved, we were among the elite ofNippon’s fighting airmen. As such, we were given extra money and told to enjoy ourselves during off-hours. Men who had rarely touched liquor took to heavy drinking, and many who had never even kissed a woman joined the lines at the prostitute’s door—ten minutes a turn.

Women and drink had long been considered vices as far as fighter pilots were concerned-not exactly immoral as some other cultures might view it, but wrong because pilots had a duty to perform, a monumental obligation which nothing should hinder. The Imperial Rescript itself contained stern warnings about succumbing to creature comforts and self indulgence. In our own case, however, greater license was granted. We were the men with numbered days, and everywhere the sense of finality was growing. People who would have condemned others for such actions now said nothing. Life was short, and the airmen, especially fighter pilots, were highly esteemed, almost idolized by most of the public.

To some, religion and the pure life became all the more meaningful, and several of us hiked into the nearby mountains to feel the caress of nature, to escape, to meditate. Occasionally Nakamura, Tatsuno and I went together as comrades, trying to cast aside the grimmer aspects of life as completely as possible. On one occasion, we sat together and reflected upon life rather profoundly for people our age. Tatsuno was the real philosopher, though, always probing deeper into the mysteries of existence than most people do. Despite all he had seen of death and sorrow, Tatsuno believed that life had a purpose, that it was the ultimate school of schools, that even the most terrible physical pain or mental anguish, had a place in the eternal scheme.

Once the three of us sat on a knoll, gazing across the ocean to where the clouds were creating a resplendent sunset of orange, gold, amber, and blazing red like the heart of a blast furnace. Between the clouds stretched the horizon in a narrow, irregular expanse of pale green. Above it all the sky was a royal blue, deepening into purple, and a single star pulsed the color of mercury. “Some day. . . .” Tatsuno mused and paused.

“Some day, what?” Nakamura asked.

Tatsuno waited for a minute or more. “Maybe it will all fall into place.” He shrugged, twisted his head. “Pain and sorrow. Maybe none of that will really matter except in terms of how we met it. Some people come away stronger. . . better. Or death. Some see it, and they are destroyed. Others seem to gain a greater appreciation for all of life, a greater reverence. It’s as if the spirit itself has been polished and refined. Maybe that sounds crazy, but I think that’s the idea.”

Nakamura was frowning. “Yes, but whose idea?”

“Somebody’s” Tatsuno replied at last. “Maybe just mine. Maybe whoever’s in charge.”

On other occasions my walks were solitary. Alone one Sunday morn­ing, I wandered past small, well-tended farms toward the mountains. On either side of me stretched the rice fields, dotted at intervals with farmers, some with yokes over their shoulders carrying buckets of hu­man waste, others irrigating or at work with hoes. Those farmers were artisans, their crops laid out with patience and devotion, with drawing – board precision.

Old women were also scattered throughout some of the fields, pulling weeds. For hours they would bend in the traditional squatting position, nothing visible but their backs and umbrella-like straw hats.

These aged brown obahsan of the earth lived to toil. For them work was more than mere expediency. It was life itself. All had known hard­ship. Many had lost sons in the war. Many had been forced to sell their daughters. But always those weathered faces were ready to form cracked smiles of greeting and welcome. For them, life emanated from the rice where the sun warmed their backs and the mud oozed up between their toes. Another woman nearby sometimes to converse with, and easy laughter. That was life and it was enough. Never before had I envied old women. Respected them, truly, as I did our elderly in general, but never envied them until then.

Walking slowly up the long, dirt road, I passed an ox with a ring in his nose. He was tied to a tree, switching his tail occasionally at the flies. The ox seemed very calm and resigned. That was his life, there beneath the tree and he accepted it. The hole in his nose had formed a scarred lining long ago. The ring did not hurt now. Remove it, and he might wander vaguely, I decided. Probably, though, he would remain where he was, flicking his tail. That was enough. So, in the end, conditions didn’t matter nearly so much as perspective. Acceptance, resignation—that was the important thing.

Near the foot of the mountain, the lane fanned into a broad, grav­eled road, extending a hundred yards to a stone stairway. The steps ascended in tiers, passing beneath several great, wooden torii. Midway, a woman holding a bright yellow parasol was climbing upward with a baby in a carrying cloth upon her back. Even from that distance I knew that the baby would not be dangling limply. It would be hugging her back like some tiny arboreal creature, bright dark eyes incredibly luminous, peering alertly over her shoulder, drinking in the world, the universe. Reflecting them.

Passing beneath the final, upper torii, I emerged in a clearing where temples and shrines lay in a half moon, their walls covered with intri­cately carved designs, their eaves curving upward at the tips. Part of one facade was carved with golden dragons, another with red and green lions possessing strangely human faces. Still another was adorned with flowers, exotic plant life, bending reeds, and low-flying waterfowl.

At the entrance to the clearing an aged man and a young girl, prob­ably his granddaughter, were selling amulets. All alone, those two—just the old man and the little girl. There where sunlight and trees filigreed the land with light and shadow, where a breeze played intermittently along the lattices and the ancient buildings.

Having purchased one of the charms, I strolled ahead toward the buildings. At the entrance to the main temple were many lanterns, the center one—red, black, and gold—about six feet in diameter. I was surprised that so few people were present, but reminded myself that this

was a remote area. It was still early. Once I glimpsed the yellow parasol gliding among some trees before vanishing behind a pagoda.

Climbing the temple steps very slowly, meditatively, I paused at the entrance and gazed into the darkened and hallowed confines. It required a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dimness, but gradually the faintly burnished wooden floors materialized, then the darkened corri­dors, all of it simmering with reverence and quiescence, faintly echoing the ages past. No bombs had fallen here; nor, I devoutly hoped, would they. Here the war did not exist, and everything within seemed expect­ant, gently beckoning.

I removed my shoes and hesitated, caressed suddenly by the cooler temperature. Looming a short distance before me was an immense, rounded statue of Buddha, towering perhaps fifteen feet into the gloom. It was a pale, gray green like oxidized copper, yet it seemed to emanate a steady, subtly expanding glow. Automatically, I knelt, gazing upward into its face. What a countenance! How indescribably benign and im­perturbable! How removed from the petty cares of the world!

The longer I gazed, the lighter it became, and the more it seemed to convey. . . what? Almost a smugness at having so fully transcended the mundane. But no, not smugness, I decided, for it had transcended that too—all such concerns, all triviality, all vanity. It was, instead, the very quintessence of tranquility.

For perhaps an hour I sat there, my legs tucked beneath me, medi­tating. I did not comprehend all the differences between the religion of Buddha and national Shintoism. Nor did I understand how it was possible for a person to embrace both simultaneously as many in my country actually did, for their doctrines regarding an after life seemed utterly antithetic.

On the one hand lay ultimate transcendency, ultimate liquidation of individual identity and absorption into the grand and universal “soul”, much as a drop of water enters the ocean. On the other, the perpetu­ation of personality and of human relationships. For our fighting men, those who died valiantly in battle, the honor of being guardian warriors in the realms beyond.

As present, however, differences in theology were irrelevant. For the moment I was already in another world. “If death is anything like this,” I thought, “then perhaps it won’t matter much how it comes as Tatsuno says, only in terms of how we face it. A few years one way or another, in reality, for all of us. Then it will come as surely as the setting of the sun, as surely as cherry blossoms fall by the roadside. And, after that? What it was I did not know, yet there had to be something, an outcome that was correct and in keeping with the grand and proper order of things.

Something about that temple impelled me to linger on and on. There in that remote sanctuary I was safe, and the world beyond the mountain was unreal. For a time I actually believed that I had found the solution. I would stay here forever beyond all harm, all strife, all sorrow. Ere long I would become a priest. Yes, that was my answer. Here where antiquity hovered, absorbing the present and the future. Here in this eternal fourth dimension, this place of sweet sadness, and attenuated nostalgia, of kindness. . . of ultimate reconciliation.

How long I remained there, I am uncertain, but the sun had crossed its zenith, and the shadows of afternoon were expanding. At length I arose and left, turning my back upon the great Buddha, feeling the per­sistence of its vibrations, and entered the waiting day. Sitting upon the stairs a short distance below was a man in a white robe, his head shaven bald and faintly gleaming. His hands rested in his lap, and as I drew closer it appeared that he was totally relaxed, remarkably in tune with his surroundings, much like the Buddha itself. His gaze was directed at the distant sky and ocean.

As I passed by, his voice came warmly, with remarkable resonance: “Good afternoon, young airman!”

“Good afternoon,” I replied uncertainly.

“You have come from Oita?”

“Yes, revered sir, from Oita.” I hesitated, angling a furtive glance, fearful that either refusal to look his way at all or a direct stare would be disrespectful. Simultaneously, it occurred to me that his hair was actually very dense, the dark roots sheening through his scalp like an abundance of iron filings.

“Do you have a few moments?” he continued, “or must you now return to your base immediately?”

I hesitated, unaccountably embarrassed. “I must. . .” I began then reversed myself. “I have a few minutes, revered sir.”

“Good,” he said, giving a quick nod. “Come and sit down. We shall enjoy the trees and beautiful vistas together.”

Bowing, I introduced myself and sat beside him as directed. Strange­ly enough, the uneasiness swiftly receded. After all, I reminded myself, the season is late. Why waste it on timidity? It was good now simply to be in this man’s presence, to converse, or remain silent.

Soon, however, he began to ask me questions—where my home was, how long I had been a pilot, how long at Oita, and at last: “What is you present assignment?”

“Fighter pilot,” I said. “In a few days I will be flying escort mis­sions.”

“Ah jo!” The words came quietly, politely, the eyebrows barely elevat­ing, “for the Kamikaze?”

I nodded. “Yes, revered sir.”

For a time, he offered no reply, merely nodded faintly, contemplating the horizon. Eventually he spoke, inquiring thoughtfully and at length regarding my background and family, and all the while I wondered when he was going to speak to me officially, with formality, as a Bud­dhist priest and as my elder. He never did.

Clouds were collecting about the sun, now, enhancing the shadows and the breeze. Its tendrils were playing over us, stirring trees in the valley below. “Wind is a strange phenomenon,” he observed quietly, “is it not?” For an instant I regarded his profile, one a bit like my father’s. “We don’t really know its point of origin, nor can we see it.”

“That is true,” I acknowledged.

“Yet it is always present somewhere, always manifesting itself, al­ways moving. No doubt it is one of those things that will always be.” He paused. “Do you believe that the spirit of man itself might be somewhat similar?”

“Perhaps so,” I said.

“You and I,” he continued slowly. “I mean the essence—that something which makes you and me who we are—I suspect that it will always be, much like the wind. Always somewhere, moving, doing its work, becoming manifest.”

“My friend Tatsuno feels that way,” I told him. “I. . . I greatly want to also.”

“Ah jo!” Again the exclamation with the same subdued politeness, and he regarded me curiously, earnestly. “There is not one thing that ever reduces itself to mere absence,” he said. “Even the human body.” He held out his own hands, strong looking hands with pronounced, widely branch­ing veins. His fingernails were impressively well groomed. “Destroyed most certainly!” The fingers closed, forming fists, “But not annihilated!” I glanced at him. Those last words had come with a kind of passion. His face was fiercely resolute.

Then his manner became more mild once more. “Changed, yes, in remarkable ways, but not obliterated. Matter, energy—they have always ex­isted. They were not woven from an empty loom. They will always be.”

I nodded. “Perhaps so, revered sir.”

“And thus, my friend. . . .” His hand actually settled upon my shoulder for an instant, “although the spirit can depart this frail tabernacle called the body, that should not concern us unduly. It is all a part of the grand cosmic order, and we continue. The wind has left these lanterns now. It is far away, quiescent for the moment perhaps, but the air itself is everywhere.”

Soon it was time to go, and I departed, offering much thanks and several bows of respect.

“I hope that you will return, Airman Kuwahara,” he said.

“I likewise, revered father,” I replied.

Then I left the clearing, descending the long stone stairway beneath the torii.

t school the following day I informed my friends of the honor that had come to me, and the news spread rapidly. Once again I was someone important, the center of attention. During lunch period I barely had time to eat my sushi cakes because so many people were clustered about, pressing me with questions.

“Did the captain come right to your home?” Someone asked. “Yes,” I replied. “In fact, he stayed for two hours and had dinner with us?”

“Uso!” Someone exclaimed. “Honto?”

“Yes, honestly!” I said. “I’m not lying.”

Kenji Furuno, one of the better glider students, plied me with ques­tion after question: “Did he just come right out and ask you? I mean, what did he do? Did he tell you that you had to join?”

“He asked me, of course,” I said. “Naturally, we discussed the matter at some length with my father.”

“What did the captain say, though?” Kenji persisted. “Did he just come right out and say, “Will you please be so kind as to honor the Imperial Army Air Force with your presence?’“ Several students laughed excitedly.

I failed to join them, however. Kenji had suddenly become rather inferior, along with the rest of them. “Captain Mikami told me that I had been chosen to serve his Imperial Majesty and our great country.”

“Yes, but didn’t he even give you any time to decide?” another student asked, “Not even an hour or two?”

Almost unconsciously, I eyed him as the Captain eyed me the night before. His smile wavered. “Would you need time to decide something like that?” I challenged.

“Well. . . I guess not,” he answered lamely.

Tatsuno had been listening quietly without comment until now, merely eating his lunch. “I don’t think anyone would turn down an honor like that,” he mused at last. “I doubt if anyone would even dare to.” Often his reactions seemed those of someone almost elderly, his tone and expression perhaps as much as the words themselves. “Myself, I want to be a pilot like my brother, more than anything else in the world. Even so, when you think about it. . . . He paused for some time. I mean, after all. . . he might never come back.”

“That is true,” I admitted. “To die for one’s country is the greatest of privileges.” The words of my father. I wasn’t sure I fully believed them, but they sounded impressive and certainly enhanced my prestige in the eyes of my friends. Everyone was silent now, either staring at the floor or out the windows. Then the bell rang. It was time for afternoon classes.

I went through the remainder of my school day in a kind of trance, as if I had somehow been set apart from the world. Old Tanaka sensei, our instructor, the students—even the desks, books, and the drab walls.

. . everything seemed a bit strange and remote. I was seeing and listening as though from a different sphere. Somewhere out in the pale afternoon a plane was droning, the sound barely perceptible yet persistent. Inces­sant. At times it seemed only a vibration, an echo in the memory, but it made me tingle.

When it was time for glider training, I participated with renewed determination, performing every act with perfect confidence and preci­sion. Abruptly, I decided that from then on I would make no mistakes during glider flying—not a single mistake, however, insignificant. This habit of perfection would become so well established that within a few months I would fly propeller driven aircraft just as perfectly.

Yes, I would become the ultimate pilot of pilots. I would shoot down a hundred enemy planes, and the time would come when the name Ku – wahara would resound throughout Japan. On the Emperor’s birthday I would be chosen to perform remarkable aerobatics in the skies over Tokyo while millions of people far below cheered exultantly. Later I would be escorted amid great fanfare across the green moat and arching wooden bridge. I would gaze down at the lily pads, the elegant, snowy swan and huge listless carp the color of gold and lime. Then I would enter the palace of the Emperor—the Grand Imperial Place where the Emperor himself would present me with the Kinshi Kunsho, the coveted medal of honor after the Order of The Golden Kite.

Such fantasies were fading as Tatsuno and I returned home in the evening, enjoying the sound of our woodengeta as we scuffed and shuffled up the winding road among the pines. Eventually, perhaps guessing my thoughts, Tatsuno remarked, “You know, Yasuo, if you weren’t my best friend I would be very envious right now.”

After a moment’s silence I replied, “I’d give anything if we were going in together; that would truly make it perfect.” I rested my hand upon his narrow shoulder, and we clopped along together. “But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if you should get the same chance before long.”

Tatsuno shook his head. “Oh, I don’t really think so,” he said. “After all, look who you are! You’re the national glider champion!”

“Yes, but what kind of an air force would we have if they only chose glider champions?” I asked. “Besides, you really did well. You went to the finals, didn’t you?” He merely shrugged. “Didn’t you?” I prodded and began shaking him back and forth, trying to pull him off balance. “Didn’t you?”

Suddenly I pushed the long visor of his school cap over his eyes. “Didn’t you?” Laughing, he grabbed for my own and I ducked. Then we were cavorting along, laughing and grabbing, shoving each other, our wooden geta clattering loudly along the paved street near home. “And you’ve got the best grades of almost anybody in our school—right? Right?”

“Yes,” he laughed, “except you!”

It was almost dark by then, and we parted at the gateway to our yard. I entered my home to find Mother hunched over a large book at

the dining table. Food was cooking on the hibachi, and it smelled very good, but she did not seem happy. Her reply to my hello was subdued. I looked at her curiously. “Is Father home yet?”

“No.” I could barely hear her.

“Is he still at work?”

She shook her head. “He will not be home tonight.”

Then I understood. It was never easy for her, even after all the years. Her veined hands closed the book, and she gazed silently at the cover— Tale of Genji. “My mother gave me this book when I was a young girl,” she said. “I still remember almost all of it.”

Sitting beside her, I spoke with great hesitancy: “No one could ever take your place, Mother. You know how much Father cares for you.” “Oh yes,” she replied, unable to conceal the note of bitterness. But I am not so young any more—not like his darlings, his Kimiko and his Toshiko, and all the others. She laughed even more bitterly. “There was a time when your father never looked at another woman, nor was he the only man who thought I was beautiful.”

“You are still beautiful!” I exclaimed. “I think you are the most beautiful woman in the world!”

“Reddening faintly, Mother replied, “I must think my Yasuo-chan is a full-grown man now, talking such foolishness.” Then she kissed my cheek. “It’s really nothing to worry about. Nothing has changed, and your father will return as usual tomorrow or the next day. Besides. . . .” She arose, attending to her meal. “I will always have my children. They are my greatest joy.”

There was nothing more to say. It was aJapanese male’s prerogative to have his mistresses, as long as he could afford them, and my father was the richest man in Onomichi. Although true geisha are not prostitutes, some are available as mistresses to men of sufficient means, and my father kept one of his own in nearby Hiroshima, an alleged ravishing beauty of marked talent in the dance and such stringed instruments as the koto and samisen. This I had learned from my older brothers long ago, the “unspoken secret” of which everyone was well aware.

So it was that whenever my father went away, except for legitimate business trips, which were almost always quite lengthy, my mother con­tinued meekly about her responsibilities in the home as was befitting a wife in such circumstances. Her comments in that connection, in fact, were highly atypical and probably stemmed from her anxiety over my impending departure and realization that I would soon be caught up in a great war, the most devastating conflict in history.

In any event, I actually enjoyed my father’s absences most of the time. Not that I didn’t love him, but rather because I felt less restrained when he was away. They afforded me an opportunity to be with my mother and sister, to be the center of attention. As the weeks faded, and the time approached for my departure, in fact, I took ever-increasing comfort from being alone with them.

It was Tomika above all, though, who made the prospect of leaving poignant. She had been the ideal sister, even defending me against the occasional teasing and bullying of my older brothers when they were still in the home. Tomika, as well as my mother, washed and ironed my clothes, cooked my favorite meals, and fondly indulged my every whim.

Often, as the time drew nigh, we wandered by the ocean, along the cold sands that smelled of salt and fish and seaweed. On those rare days in January when the sun parted the clouds we gathered shells and listened to the quiet puttering of junks in the harbor. Even when the weather was cold, men and women bustled about in long dingy shacks along the shore, smoking fish and preparing them for the market. Aged people in the main, crinkled and brown, in tattered clothing, hunched there on the beach, at work with their nets.

I had never known their privation or gone shoeless and half clad like their children and grandchildren, but there seemed to be some­thing pleasant about that life, about its utter simplicity that suddenly was exceptionally appealing. At times we would watch as those fisher people spread catches of tiny, shimmering fish to dry on woven mats, later collecting them in baskets. When sunlight warmed the beach they occasionally rested long enough to dig their bare toes in the sand and visit. Their voices and laughter were always mild—at one with the cries of the gulls and surging of the waves.

There was a timelessness and serenity about those ocean people that made the war seem rather remote. True, the enemy was bombing our homeland, but the immediate area had thus far gone unscathed, and occasionally even now, war was something that happened only in books and movies.

This same peace prevailed as we strolled the mountainside, viewing the terraced farmlands. Now, in mid winter, the terraces and paddy’s were bleak and lifeless, but with the coming of spring they would explode a brilliant green. The rice would quest higher and higher from the muck that gave it birth, never losing its brightness until the time of harvest. Meanwhile, the mountains, cloaked in their own dense foliage, would brood ever darker as the summer moved on.

Now, however, all of nature was drab and gray, and my three months had fled with disturbing abruptness. Suddenly I realized that the time with my family and friends was nearly over, perhaps forever. Within only a few days I would depart from Onomichi and very possibly never return.

On an afternoon near the end of January Tomika and I sat in my upstairs room gazing outward upon the wintry landscape. The pines of the hillside were patched with slowly wreathing mists. I would be leaving the next morning, and the sense of finality simmered in my stomach with a mild burning sensation. My hands were slightly tremulous. To­morrow! Excitement and anxiety roiled steadily throughout my entire system, even the capillaries of my skin.

Our back yard itself was blurred in mist, the rough-hewn gray stone of our family shrine invisible, the heavy wooden torii forming the gateway to the road barely discernible, its bright orange surface dull and muted like the waning of hope.

“I wish it were summer,” I sighed. “Then we could go hiking, even take one more swim in the lake.”

“Hai,” Tomika said and nodded. “I wish it were always summer.” After a long silence she spoke again. “How can this be?” I glanced at her puzzled. “Why must people fight and hate each other?” Her words and expression had never been more imploring or distressed. “Is this really possible? People endlessly killing each other? People who actually hate us? Want to destroy us?”

“Why not?” I answered sadly. “We hate them. Don’t we want to destroy and conquer them?”

“I don’t want to destroy and conquer anyone.” Her voice was sor­rowful, almost ancient. “I just want people to live in peace. I want them to be kind to each other.”

“But how can we live at peace when the western powers are stran­gling us?” I asked. It was a doctrine we had been taught in school, the conviction of our father and countless others. The West had long domi­nated so much of the world that Japan had no opportunity to expand and was gradually being stifled.

The Americans themselves were, in general, an objectionable people. Mongrels in reality, large, ungainly people, many of them obese, with pallid skins and strange hair. Red hair, some of them! I had never seen a red-haired American, very few at all, for that matter, but I had seen photographs of them in magazines. A greater number, in fact, had yellow hair. Hana ga takoi, big noses, on top of that! Worse still, some of them were almost black, having originated in dark and forbidding places such as Africa and South America.

The whole situation seemed highly unnatural, indeed, downright sinister. Furthermore, most Americans were greedy, prodigal and lazy, wallowing in undeserved luxury. Their soldiers were savage and guttural­voiced, yet also cowardly when their lives were in jeopardy as my father had assured me.” Do you believe what they’re saying about American Marines?” I inquired. Tomika eyed me quizzically. “That they have to kill and eat their own grandmothers even to become a Marine,” I said. “That’s the main qualification.”

“No,” Tomika replied firmly, “that’s ridiculous! No one, not even an American, would ever do a thing like that.”

“Well,” I said dubiously, “that’s what some of them are saying at school—even old Tanaka-sensei in our history class.”

No doubt the average Caucasian view of Orientals was just as ex­treme in some ways. In the American view we were yellow-skinned, slant-eyed monkeys, dwelling in paper houses. We possessed no spark of originality and could only copy what others had the ingenuity to invent. Our soldiers—indeed every Japanese, Japanese Americans included—were considered sneaky, treacherous and fanatical. “Dirty Jap,” was one of the more popular epithets.

At times I still wonder how much such forms of ignorance and preju­dice among virtually all peoples have contributed to war throughout the ages.

In January of 1944, however, I did not ponder such matters very deeply. I had been reared to believe that the Imperial Way of Righteous­ness and Truth was the best way—the only way—and that ultimately, despite great obstacles, it would envelop the world. For indeed, it was divinely ordained to do so. In time all nations of the earth would be united in a vast hierarchy with Japan at the helm, but unfortunately such a condition could not obtain without war. The greatest blessings sometimes demanded the greatest sacrifice.

Furthermore, the population of our country was rapidly increasing with scant room to expand, and we were in desperate need of more terri­tory. Drastic conditions required drastic solutions, and consequently our assault on Pearl Harbor three years earlier had been a solemn obligation, action requiring immense courage and foresight.

Such was the prevailing doctrine, yet in reality I often felt much as Tomika did. N ow especially, I only wanted to live and let live in the most literal sense. Increasingly, in fact, I was becoming a split personality. Fear on the one hand, a desire for peace and sanctuary. Excitement on the other from my growing awareness that within a few months I could be flying, not a mere glider but rather an actual, bona-fide aircraft. Indeed, if I were good enough and very fortunate, if the gods were with me, a fighter plane. Already I was a hero in the eyes of my friends, but as fighter pilot I would experience even greater, more lasting, recognition.

Through with my studies now, I had bid goodbye to my teachers and classmates, having learned only a day earlier, that two more students from our school had been selected for training at Hiro. Better still, Tatsuno was one of them. He would not be entering the service for another two months, but both of us were delighted over what had happened. During my final days at home we were together frequently.

Our common bond with the Air Force had brought us even closer, closer in some ways than I was to my own brothers. When Tatsuno first gave me the good news I had clapped him on the back, exclaiming, “See, what did I tell you!” Tatsuno had only smiled shyly, the wise older man in the boy’s body, but it was impossible to disguise his excitement.

On my final day at home I went with him to visit some of our other friends then returned to spend the remaining hours with my family. Father was obviously proud and in good spirits, talking with me more intimately than ever before while Mother and Tomika prepared a special farewell dinner from the best rice and sashimi, sliced, raw fish fresh from the sea—along with a variety of other delicacies.

Before midnight I bade my family a good rest and crawled beneath my futon. For many hours, however, sleep failed to come. My thoughts were an ever-unfolding panorama of memories, visions of the future, and ongoing apprehensions. Above all, I feared that I would not be able to compete with the others in basic training. Most of them were older than I, at that critical stage of rapid growth when even a year or two could make a marked difference. Would I actually be able to keep up with them? Captain Mikami had said basic training would be “very enjoy­able” yet more and more I wondered if he had been speaking ironically. Stories were steadily mounting regarding the rigorous routine ahead, the harshness of the punishment for even the most trivial mistakes.

Half asleep, half awake, I tossed and squirmed for more than an hour, fearful that I would be exhausted with the arrival of morning. At last I began to drift off, aware that several aircraft had just passed over, purring steadily off, diminishing into the mysterious realms of night. Sit­ting there beside me, softly stroking my brow was my mother. Extending my hand, I felt the warmth of her own. In the darkness nearby came a faint murmur, and I knew that Tomika was beside her. Gradually my thoughts settled and sleep came.

fter that visit I began to view the world, life and death, some­what differently. The temple, and the great, emanating Buddah, the priest. . . and the wind among the lanterns. I had accepted the priest’s philosophy, and although it transcended my sense of reason, it also ap­pealed to it. Even more, it somehow resonated within my being.

Nevertheless, no philosophy, even the most sustaining, could fully vanquish what I experienced during my first escort flight over Okinawa or what I felt in the aftermath. Never before had I seen men, indeed my own companions, plunge to their death in that manner.

After my first escort flight, I tossed in near delirium throughout the night, the images of that mission flashing through my mind in endless and chaotic array. At times I would awaken, wrenched upright into a sitting position, clasping my brow with both hands, hoping to exorcize it all by a concerted act of will. Determination! I told myself, If you have enough determination, you can turn it off and have a little peace. But inevitably, at the first approach of sleep, it returned with diabolical insistence. I could not escape.

Over and over, I was accompanying our fifteen Kamikaze, watching

as the dives commenced, two or three transformed into savage erup­tions of flame and smoke, flames the color of molten lava, smoke black as the fur of a panther. At times I was alone with only the boundless water below. Endless water in endlessly varying tones—indigo blue, darkening gray. . . and subtly glowing pearl. . . turquoise and brilliant, spring-rice green.

And water alone was all right, yet asleep or awake, no matter how tightly I clenched my eyes and willed it otherwise, I could not exclude the vision of that first ship. . . and another, and another.

Then, inevitably, the entire enemy convoy—dozens of battleships, carriers, destroyers, and other vessels, sullenly balanced there upon the face of the sea, methodically—imperceptibly, it seemed, at first view—gliding forward, leaving their widening white wakes. The ships swiftly enlarging, the tracers streaking wildly in straight red lines, and the proliferating death blossoms of the flak.

Always at that point, I would escape the nightmare with a jolt. It was the falling sensation that nearly everyone experiences at times on the threshold of sleep but greatly intensified. Then. . . lying there shud­dering, afraid of wakefulness, yet more afraid of sleep.

During that night and the days to come, I wondered increasingly what might become of my body at the end of my first and final one-way trip. If I accomplished my mission and struck an enemy ship, what would the explosion be like? No doubt, only a shattered second of remaining awareness. . . unless by some fantastic quirk of fate I were to survive. No, no—ridiculous. No one could ever survive such contact.

What, I wondered, would become of my head? Would my head be blasted from my body? I could almost see it at times, a charred and featureless blob sinking to the floor of the ocean. How deep was the ocean, there off Okinawa? A mile? More? I thought of the Mariana Trench therein the West Pacific. Six miles deep, the deepest spot in the entire ocean.

In my mind I saw a leg—my leg, tossed on an immense wave. I saw one of my arms. Would my arms and legs provide food for the sharks? My fingers. . . would my fingers seem strange to some fish? I saw a fish, its round eye staring impassively at fingers lodged in a strand of kelp. The fish was canary yellow with brilliant stripes of blue, its fins gently wavering, almost transparent. I saw it nibble tentatively.

If I struck an American ship, however, I might take many others with me. What wonderful irony, to find my burial in intimate company with the enemy. Ah yes. . . I shook my head, actually feeling the insinuation of a smile. Death, the grand and undeniable equalizer! What remarkable impartiality! What a curious camaraderie it bestows upon us all!

Often on those sultry nights my mattress became so damp from my own sweat, so hot that I arose and walked to the window, hoping for a mere trace of breeze, the faintest whisper. Usually nothing came, but I would stand there long enough immersed in thought to let the mattress cool a bit. Sometimes I would turn it over because the underside was cooler. Having removed the sheet, I would waft it up and down in the humid air hoping to dry it a little.

Over the past few weeks I had acquired a heat rash on my chest and upper arms that sometimes itched insanely. But no matter, I told myself; all such concerns would soon be of no consequence. Often still, I thought poignantly of home. I wrote few letters now, though, because they were being censored, and several of them had apparently never arrived. Therefore, even this final and tenuous link with my past had been reduced to a few trite words, abstract sentiments that could scarcely be conveyed.

Nevertheless, both my mother and Tomika wrote me faithfully. The first bombs had now fallen upon Onomichi, but thus far our immediate neighborhood had been spared, perhaps because of its sparser popula­tion and inconspicuousness upon the verdant mountainside. Happily, none of our family or immediate neighbors had been injured, but now after so many months away it had all become a fond dream, and even the dream was waning, for I would never return.

Now that I was a fighter escort, Nakamura, Tatsuno and I did not see each other as often, and our barracks were some distance apart. At times Nakamura and I flew the same mission, but that provided little opportunity for close association, and Tatsuno, with less experience, was only flying reconnaissance at present.

Throughout it all—the anxiety, fear, frustration, sorrow. . . the fleet­ing hopes, we escort pilots were learning something valuable, learning what was necessary for a Kamikaze to die effectively and with honor. We knew, better than anyone else, what it required to sink an enemy ship. I

personally knew the best strategy, having witnessed some successes and far too many failures.

To the novice, diving into an American ship might seem relatively simple. In reality, however, it had become increasingly difficult. First, there were the ever-vigilant enemy fighters. In addition, each vessel fired off an astounding barrage. The combined output of anti-aircraft, heavy caliber machine guns, and other weaponry, created a virtual lead wall at times.

Moreover, the moment they were under attack, the ships began to zigzag erratically, so that many of our pilots missed their targets com­pletely, plunging into the ocean. Often, as well, it was easy to become confused in pre-dawn attacks or storm. One Kamikaze from another base, in fact, was reported to have mistaken a tiny island for a battleship dur­ing the early hours of morning. A billowing eruption against the gloomy shore had revealed his error.

In my own estimation, the best procedure was to descend from a height of ten to five thousand feet, the sun at our tails. The dive angle would vary from forty-five to sixty degrees, leveling out about five hundred yards from the target and roaring in as low to the water as possible.

Thus an approach would occur below the angle of the bigger guns. That way also the ships were in danger of hitting each other with their own weaponry, and a strike at the waterline greatly increased the likeli­hood of a sunken vessel

Despite our most desperate and ingenious efforts, however, the aver­age number of hits was now only ten to fifteen percent. A sad contrast to those first impressive results at Luzon.