Category KAMIKAZE

Honor and a Lost Cause

U

pon returning to Hiro, I learned that two others of our group had made it to safety. My friend Shiro Hashimoto had been shot down but had survived with a badly shattered leg, A few days later, Oka, Yamamoto, Nakamura, and I visited him at a hospital in Hiroshima and were depressed at what we found. Hashimoto’s leg had been amputated and he had attempted suicide.

Antiseptic odors assailed my nostrils as we entered the room, and I began to wish we had never come. What could we possibly do, even say that would help? Simultaneously, I was strangely fascinated by the scene.

Hashimoto seemed to be a different person, wraith-like there in his white bed. His skin was ashen. Only the burning eyes revealed what was happening inside. The cotton blanket dropped away starkly where his leg should have been. Our greetings were uncertain, trite, somewhat embarrassed. “We brought you some magazines,” I said, humiliated at the triviality of such a gesture.

“Thanks, Kuwahara,” he said,” but I don’t feel like reading anything right now.”

“Well. . .” I replied hesitantly, “maybe we can just leave them for you. . . until you’re feeling better. I mean. . .” I persisted, “I’m sure you’ll be improving in a few days.”

Hashimoto shook his head, gasping a dry laugh. “How do you im­prove when a leg’s been blasted off? Grow a new one?”

I made no reply, and we all simply stood there, wordless and stupid. Yet something had to be said. Why were they leaving it all to me? I was becoming irritated and eventually blundered onward. “We know it’s very hard for you right now,” I said and patted his hand, groping for an intel­ligent thought. “But you have fulfilled your obligation to the Emperor. You are a true samurai, far more than the rest of us. And, from now on you will be able to do as you please, even find a wife and get married.” I knew that last was a mistake even before I said it, but the words had simply tumbled out.

“Oh yes!” Hashimoto rasped. “Wonderful! Maybe I can find a good strong one—one like an ox who can carry a cripple on her back.”

Still, I kept talking. “I know how you feel, but lots of people are be­ing wounded in this great war, and that doesn’t mean they can’t marry. Think of Lieutenant Shimada. He’ll never—”

“Would to God, that I had followed Shimada!” Hashimoto croaked, actually struggling to sit up as if he might attack me. Then he fell back with a moan, closing his eyes, barely breathing, it seemed. “What good am I?” he sighed. I could scarcely hear him. “To anybody?”

Silently cursing myself, I glanced at the others. There was no accu­sation in their own countenances, merely vacuity. Yamamoto shook his head and stared at the floor. Then Oka, with a slight toss of his head, indicated the door. Reluctantly, I started to leave, but turned back for an instant, patting his shoulder. “We’ll see you again soon,” I said, knowing that we might never see him at all. It was too painful.

Just then footsteps sounded in the hallway. A man and a woman entered, obviously Hashimoto’s parents. After we had exchanged intro­ductions, the woman turned to her son without speaking and laid her hand upon his brow. Long delicate fingers, slightly tremulous. “Here,”

Oka volunteered and slid the room’s only chair her way. Thanking him, she sat down and continued to stroke Hashimoto’s forehead.

Again there was silence, and again we were ready to leave, but now the woman was speaking. “Why must people fight? Why must they hate and destroy each other? Why?” Her voice was surprisingly rich and low, filled with incredulity. She was shaking her head now, eyes half closed. “Oh, the senselessness of it all! The stupidity! Why can’t. . . ?” She hesitated, eyes closed for an instant, collecting herself. “Shiro’s father and I did not rear him so that he could lose his leg. Nor did we rear his brother Joji to die in some awful jungle on Guadalcanal.”

Hesitantly I informed her that I had recommended her son for the medal of valor, but that too was a mistake. Obviously the only way to avoid further idiocy was to keep my mouth shut.

For a moment I gazed out the window across Hiroshima. Little did I comprehend how ironic her comments about death and destruction would become in the days ahead and how applicable with respect to that city. At the moment, I devoutly wished that we had never come there, that I could simply vanish.

“I did not mean to hurt your feelings,” she said, “or to appear un­grateful, but there is something I must tell you all before you go. Look at me all of you,” she commanded, and we glanced at her in surprise. “Listen to me carefully, my sons.” Our astonishment increased. Her voice was harsh and dry, almost guttural, yet somehow very appealing, and her eyes possessed a kind of passionate fluidity.

“Your minds are filled with strange ideas,” she continued, “much that is false and malevolent. Ideas about honor and glory, dying with valor. These and many related matters.” Her face was solemn, remark­ably commanding, etched with many lines but also beautiful. Her hair contained a startling streak of white as though it might have been splashed with acid.

“But I advise you to forget such things. Seek only to preserve life— your own and those of others. Life alone is sacred.” Her eyes held us hypnotically. “There is no honor, my sons, in dying for a lost cause.”

I stared at her in disbelief, shot a glance at her husband, expect­ing him to rebuke her. As though reading my thoughts, she eyed him sharply, but he remained silent. “Fathers feel no differently about this than mothers do,” she persisted, “not deep inside.”

Suddenly I recalled with great poignancy how my own father had looked into my eyes months earlier and inquired, “Do you know my heart?”

Shortly afterward we said goodbye, but all the way back to Hiro I kept hearing the words of Hashimoto’s mother: “There is no honor in dying for a lost cause.” A lost cause? An indescribable feeling was set­tling, infusing the very pores of my skin with hopelessness. Throughout the following days those words persisted. The feeling increased, and gradually I became indignant. Who was that woman that she could presume to speak such heresy? A mere woman! And her husband—he must have been a small man. Indeed, a very small man! Obviously, she was in command of that household. She controlled him! Heresy in and of itself.

But my indignation often left me as rapidly as it had come. Always the cold and frightened feeling returned, increasing. I had not seen much of Tatsuno the past few weeks. Both of us, of course, were heavily involved in our military duties, but gradually I came to realize that he made me uncomfortable in much the same way Hashimoto’s mother had. What had he said during our last actual visit? Something about the secret. Yes, what was the secret? What were we waiting for?

I had no answer, none at least that I could accept emotionally. Surely the words of Hashimoto’s mother and Tatsuno did not reflect the attitude of our people in general. And yet. . . I could not deny it. The disillusion­ment was growing, and at last I began to face the facts.

Japan had been driven back three thousand miles across the Pacific. MacArthur had returned to the Philippines, entering Luzon and van­quishing our forces at Leyte Gulf. This I had learned through the winds of military rumor, but the winds had now attained gale force. Although I did not realize it initially, that loss had virtually eliminated Japan as a naval power. Even then, however, I knew that it had exerted a serious impact on troop morale. For many months the Americans had taken very few captives, but now we were surrendering in substantial numbers.

Of course, there was Kamikaze. The suicide attacks had increased on a grand scale, and from all that we could learn they had been highly ef­fective. For a time, in fact, they had fanned the flames of hope, yet still. .

. would Kamikaze actually stop the enemy? If so, it would require far more human bombs. Colonel Okamura’s estimate that three hundred suicide planes could alter the war in our favor was obviously much too small.

Nevertheless, a part of me clung to the fraying branches of hope. If a “Divine Wind” had saved our country once when her plight was just as desperate, why not again? Was not the Imperial Way the right way after all? The best way, ultimately, for the world? Was not Japan divinely destined for leadership? If indeed there were a God—one of truth, reason, and justice—was it not only right, but also eminently logical that he should come to our rescue? Possibly our present trials were the final test, one of our courage and worthiness. So maybe, just when our plight looked the most bleak, as night was closing in, our circumstances would improve.

But how many human bombs would it require? Many of our men were still willing to lay down their lives. To many, in fact, it was no sacrifice. To some, honor and duty were, in very deed, heavier than the mountains, death lighter than a feather.

In any event, the Divine Wind was steadily mounting, and as it increased more and more of us would be drawn into it. Only a matter of time, only a matter of time. The clouds were darkening above Hiro. The first gusts were coming.

National Glider Champion

I

t is difficult, perhaps impossible, to determine where the forces eventuating inJapan’s Kamikaze offensive, the strangest warfare in history, began. Ask the old man, the venerable ojiisan, with his flowing beard—the man who still wears kimono and clattering wooden geta on the streets—for he is a creature of the past. Perhaps he will tell you that these mysterious forces were born with his country over two and a half millennia ago, with Jimmu Tenno, first emperor, descendant of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu-Omikami. Or, he may contend that their real birth came twenty centuries later, reflected in the proud spirit and tradition of the samurai, the famed and valiant warriors of feudal times.

Whatever their beginnings, these forces focused upon me during 1943, in the midst of World War II, when I was a mere boy of only fifteen. It was then that I won the Japanese National Glider Championship.

Back where memory blurs into veils of forgetfulness I can vaguely discern a small boy watching hawks circle above the velvet mountains of Honshu—watching enviously each afternoon. I remember how he even envied the sparrows as they chittered and flitted through the shrubbery and arched across the roofs. To fly—transcend the bondage of gravity! What incomparable freedom! What exhilaration! What joy!

Strangely, even then, I sensed that my future lay somewhere in the skies. At fourteen, attending Onomichi High School, I was old enough to participate in a glider training course sponsored by the Osaka Prefecture, a training that had two advantages. First, it was the chance I had waited for all my life—a chance to be in the air. Secondly, war was reverberating throughout the world, and while many students were required to spend part of their regular school time working in the factories, I was permit­ted to learn glider flying for two hours every day. All students, in fact, were either directly engaged in producing war materials or preparing themselves as future defenders of their country though such programs as judo, sword fighting, or marksmanship. Even grade school children were taught to self defense with sharpened bamboo shafts.

Our glider training was conducted on a grassy field near the school, and the first three months were often frustrating since we never once moved off the ground. Fellow trainees merely took turns towing each other across the lawn, getting plenty of exercise, while the would-be pilot vigorously manipulated the wing and tail flaps with hand and foot controls, pretending that he was soaring at some awesome height in com­pany with the eagles. Much of our time was also devoted to calisthenics, and it was apparent even then that all of our training was calculated to prepare us for great challenges and trials.

Gradually we began taking to the air, only a few feet above the ground initially, but what excitement! Eventually, thanks to the exer­tions of a dozen or so young comrades, we were towed rapidly enough to ascend some sixty feet, the maximum height for a primary glider.

Having mastered the fundamentals, we were transferred to the secondary glider, which was car-towed for the take-off and capable of remaining aloft for several minutes. It had a semi-enclosed cockpit and a control stick with a butterfly-shaped steering device for added maneuverability.

Aside from understanding the basic mechanical requirements of glider flying, it was necessary to sense the air currents, feel them out, automatically judging their direction and intensity, like the hawks above the mountains.

How far should I travel into the wind? Often I could determine this only by thrusting my head from the cockpit and letting the drafts cascade against my face. And at times of descent just before I had circled to soar once more upon the thermals the onrushing air tide seemed to have acquired a kind of solidity becoming almost stifling. Moments before take-off, in fact, the air impact was tremendous, nearly overwhelming, requiring all my strength to work the controls.

How far to travel in one direction before circling, precisely how much to elevate the wing flaps to avoid stalling and still maintain maximum height. . . these things were not charted beforehand. But the bird instinct was within me, and I was able to pilot my glider successfully, qualifying for national competition the following year.

Approximately six hundred glider pilots throughout Japan, mainly high school students, had qualified for the big event at Mt. Ikoma near Nara and the great city of Osaka. The competition was divided into two phases: group and individual. Contenders could participate in either or both events and were judged on such points as time in the air, distance traveled at a specific altitude, ability to turn within a prescribed space, and angle of descent.

Perhaps it was our intensive training, perhaps destiny, that led six of us from Onomichi High School in western Honshu to the group championship. What glee and wild rejoicing! In addition, two of us were selected from that number for individual competition against about fifty others. I was one of them.

Every contestant was to fly four times, and points accumulated dur­ing each flight would be totaled to determine the winner. At the onset I was exceptionally tense and nervous, but such feelings soon faded, and to my immense delight my first three flights seemed almost perfect. Vic­tory was actually in sight!

Sunlight was warming the mountain summit when my final flight commenced. A hundred yards below on the spacious glider field, I steadied myself in the cockpit, feeling a tremor in the fragile structure that held me—delicate wood framework, curved and fastened with light aluminum and covered with silk the color of butter cups. The tow rope had been attached to a car ahead, a hook in the other end fastened to a metal ring just beneath the glider’s nose. Opening and closing my hand on the control stick, I breathed deeply and concentrated on vic­tory. “You can do it, Kuwahara,” I told myself, “you can do it. You’re invincible—you’re going to win.”

Simultaneously my veins, even the tiniest capillaries in my skin, be­gan to tingle. This was the biggest test of my life, a chance to be crowned the greatest high school glider pilot in the Nippon Empire.

My craft lurched and began sliding irresistibly across the turf, and my heart rate increased along with the acceleration. Then I was lifting, confronting the air mass which suddenly seemed immensely heavy and resistant, almost like water. Lifting, lifting. . . straining with the con­trols, feeling disconcerting vibrations. Almost as suddenly, the pressure relaxed, and the bright day itself was bearing me upward. I was above Ikoma’s calm, green summit, angled sunlight turning the leaves along its western perimeter the colors of polished brass and chrome.

I continued to climb, confident with the controls, now buoyed sky­ward on a powerful updraft. Soon I was beginning my first circle, work­ing the flaps carefully to maximize my advantage, and now the glider was responding to my touch with great empathy, with a life of its own. Simultaneously, the two of us were becoming one, soaring exultantly, carried ever higher upon the mounting currents.

Then we were making our first, broad gyration. I gazed over my shoulder at the landing strip, the upturned faces and waving hands. Three times I circled, lofting and descending, sweeping far out beyond expectation on the final one as the glider field and its throng faded. Then I became one with a flight of gulls, entranced by their whiteness against the blue of the sky. It was a good omen. Kobe Bay rejoiced in the sunlight a short distance to the east, Lake Biwa a bit farther, to the north. Thirty-eight minutes after take-off I settled to the patient earth amid a chorus of cheers.

It took nearly half an hour for the judges to finish tallying our point totals and compare scores—one of the longest waits of my life, and my ears hummed with increasing volume as I listened for the results. I knew that I had done well, that my chances for the prize were good, but at that point nothing seemed real. Then. . . then, suddenly! My name was being announced, blaring stridently over the loud speaker: “Kuwahara-

Yasuo, 340 points—first place, individual competition!” Vaguely I heard the next name being announced for second place as friends slapped my back, shouted my name and cheered. I saw the faces of my family, beaming and radiant as they pushed through the throng. I was glider champion of the Nippon Empire.

At that moment I had no idea how such a distinction would drasti­cally alter my entire existence.

Death Greets the New Year

O

n New Year’s day 1945, fighter pilots from Hiro’s Fourth Squadron held a testimonial ceremony for those of our number who had died. Captain Yoshiro Tusbaki, the squadron commander, de­livered an impassioned speech declaring our moral obligation to avenge those deaths. And later we visited Hiro’s military shrine. Not many had died yet from Hiro. In fact, all my close friends were still with me. There was one name, however, that I will never forget, that of Lieutenant Jiro Shimada who had died and taken an enemy with him in my first air battle. For a long time I gazed at his name plate there on the base of the shrine. One of the fallen valiant.

Again I saw his plane like a flaming meteor, the crashing and bil­lowing explosion. . . the two aircraft, fused as one then decimated. . . the blackened, smoking fragments dropping toward the water. Japanese and American, united even in the midst of their disintegration. Falling, falling, falling down and away. “No more New Years for you, Lieuten­ant Shimada.” The words were not spoken, mere pulsations in my mind. “You have fulfilled your obligation to the Emperor.” Then, very slowly, I turned and walked away.

What sad attempts we made, our words of “Happy New Year” fall­ing like frozen clods to the earth. No doubt all of us were thinking of New Year’s Day at home somewhere in the dreamscape of the past. I recalled with a sudden twinge of nostalgia how Tomika and I had run through out home on that same day years before, jubilantly scattering beans about to drive out the evil spirits.

The spirit that entered Hiro that New Years afternoon in 1945, however, could not be driven out by scattering beans, even by the shed­ding of blood. It was then that Captain Tusbaki called a meeting unlike anything I had experienced before or since.

It was then that Hiro’s first Kamikaze were appointed. “Those of you unwilling to lay down your lives as divine sons of the great Nippon Empire will not be required to do so.” Such had been his words, his promise. Then. . . the ultimate, dramatic pause. His eyes like burning cinders. “Those incapable of accepting this honor will raise their hands now!”

Ah yes, to be a suicide pilot, a Kamikaze. That would be the honor of honors. Had not everyone said so? But six men had raised their hands during that meeting in response to the Captain’s promise of exemption, men I knew well. Afraid enough, or perhaps brave enough, to admit what most of us secretly felt.

They had chosen life and been given death, a dubious honor.

A few months earlier, men at other bases had volunteered with ap­parent alacrity. Now, it would seem, many had to be compelled, even tricked! Stern evidence that Kamikaze was already considered a failure, a futile death, by ever-growing numbers. Daily the Allies were becoming stronger. There was no denying it now. Moving ever closer, with more men, more ships, more aircraft. The B-29 Superfortresses, ominous grumbling monstrosities that they were, had begun to clot the heavens, leaving swaths of fire and destruction. The American naval forces were closing in a terrible juggernaut.

How I hated to admit it, fought against the very idea, but it would not be denied. Japan was losing fast. How long, I wondered, would our people be able to hide behind a crumbling facade of propaganda? How much longer could anyone remain in denial? Six at Hiro had refused to, and now, ironically, would forfeit their lives in consequence. Early in January, only days after our meeting, they left Hiro for suicide training.

Periodically from then on, men were selected from my squadron and trans­ferred to Kyushu for their final preparations, never to be heard of again.

For nearly a year now we had been carefully conditioned to accept the inevitability and glory of death in battle. For thousands, actually; it was a part of our historic philosophy. But now, suddenly, the tentacles were reaching out, relentlessly taking and taking. With each departure our sense of doom expanded. Sometimes it was a leaden feeling in the gut, sometimes a clotting in the throat. Increasingly it was both, often accompanied by waves of sadness, nascent tears and a kind of crying of the heart.

On the other hand, I had come through several air battles now with a second enemy plane to my credit, and that had at least increased my confidence as a fighter pilot. Flying over the inlet between Kure and Tokuyama, six of us had jumped two American fighters, and it had been surprisingly easy. Approximately one thousand feet above them, we veered off, diving at terrific speed and struck from the rear, almost before they were aware of our existence. All six of us opening up simul­taneously with cannons and machine guns.

The nearest American virtually disintegrated under our combined onslaught and went down in a sheet of flame. The second attempted to escape, performing a sharp bank to throw us off, but two of us had anticipated the move, and within seconds I had him in my range finder. It was almost that simple. Three or four fierce bursts, and he folded, plummeting downward in a smoking tail spin. How different from my first encounter with the enemy. I almost felt cheated.

So, I was becoming a capable pilot rather quickly, as also was Na­kamura with one plane to his own credit. Yet no matter how skilled we might be, no matter how many adversaries we might vanquish, the sup­ply seemed unlimited. Indeed, relentlessly, growing, almost fiendishly. Doom was omnipresent like an oncoming tidal wave. Only one hope for survival now, a tenuous wisp which I scarcely dared contemplate. The merest acknowledgement, in fact, spelled disloyalty if not cowardice. It was February 1945, and the enemy was attacking Iwo Jima, just over 650 miles from our capital, so perhaps the war would end before long. Most of us, I suspect, prayed for this. N ot directly, perhaps, for the defeat of our country but rather for a cessation to hostilities. Truly a strange

and paradoxical form of denial. Many of our civilians still had faith that Japan would prevail, but we who lived within the inferno had to be either naive, fanatical, or both to expect triumph now.

Within only a few weeks my conviction regarding Japan’s impend­ing fate had become a kind of groundswell. And gradually, my fears of compromising myself began to evaporate. Now that surrender was only a matter of time, irrevocable, I was praying for it with increasing fervor and frequency. It had become the classic race against the calendar, perhaps even the clock, and ironically only the enemy could save us.

Some of us at least had greater hope than others. Most of our fliers at Hiro were inexperienced, and already I was among those ranked as top pilots. Such men would be preserved as long as possible to provide base protection and fighter escort for suicide missions into the Pacific. We would return and report in detail upon their success.

Consequently, our poorest pilots died first, causing the enemy to conclude, initially at least, that there were no skillful Kamikaze. In the words of American Admiral Marc Mitscher: “One thing is certain: there are no experienced Kamikaze pilots.”

Regularly at this point, orders from the Daihonei in Tokyo were sent to key air installations throughout the four main islands, specifying how many pilots each base would contribute at any given time. These larger installations, in turn, drew men from bases within their jurisdic­tion. The one at Hiroshima, for example, drew from nearby Hiro, our own base, also from Kure, and Yokoshima—all on the main Island of Honshu. Men were then committed to special suicide bases including Kagoshima, the largest, on the southern inlet of Kyushu.

In general Kamikaze attacks were mounted in waves of fifteen or twenty planes at thirty-minute intervals. Some of those pilots were al­legedly sealed or locked into their cockpits, but I never witnessed such things. Nor, in my opinion, was there any reason for it. Once it all began, there was no turning back except for a rare few who returned, having been unable to find the enemy. Frequently, in fact, our Kamikaze actually opened their cockpits and signaled with flags or scarves upon sighting the first American ships—a final show of bravado, a last gesture to boost one’s courage before the plunge into oblivion.

No one living will ever comprehend the feelings of those men who covenanted with death. Not even condemned murders, not fully. The murderer is atoning for the ultimate crime against god and humanity; justice is meted out. Of course, men throughout the world have died for their countries, sometimes knowing in advance that death was inevi­table. But where, before or since, has there ever been such massive and premeditated self destruction as occurred with the Kamikaze? Where have thousands of men diligently set about their own annihilation, training methodically, relentlessly, mulling over all the details for weeks, sometimes months?

Neither the Shintoistic concept of a post-mortal existence as a guard­ian warrior in the spirit realms nor the Buddhistic doctrine of nirvana has always provided solace. The “mad, fanatic Jap” was often a mere school boy, snared in the great skein of fate, not above weeping for the arms of his mother in many cases.

Not that there weren’t fanatical Japanese fighters. Some wanted nothing but to die gloriously, to honor the Emperor, to gain revenge. Even the subdued, bespectacled student, browsing through some Tokyo library, might be molded by circumstances into a flaming soul dedicated to death. And there were some who seemed to approach the end as though it were only a morning stroll.

In general, however, we pilots moved along two broad paths. The Kichigai (madmen) were fierce in their hatred, seeking honor and im­mortality, living for only one purpose—to die. Many of these came from the navy air force which contributed a far greater number of Kamikaze.

As time passed, I personally allied myself more closely with a sec­ond group whose sentiments were basically the opposite though rarely expressed openly. These men, mainly the better educated, were referred to as Sukebei (libertines) by the Kichigai. I should stress, however, that the Sukebei were not unpatriotic, not, at least, in their own view. I would die for my country today if necessary, as I would have died then. But life was decidedly dearer to us. We saw no purpose in death for death’s sake alone, and at times now our country’s fate welled ominously like the seething crater of a volcano as viewed through endlessly shifting vapors.

Certainly, also, there was a middle ground, and each man’s at­titude fluctuated to some extent from hour to hour. There were times when I longed for revenge. Or when I considered that by destroying an

American ship I might save many of my people. . . then my own life seemed insignificant.

How often I had struggled for a certain attitude toward death—a special, indescribable feeling of acceptance. What was it that made men unafraid? Was it courage? What was courage? “We are expendable!” That was the cry. “Be resolved that honor is heavier than the mountains and death lighter than a feather.” Countless times I had repeated those words, repeated them obsessively. With some men that conviction seems to have been innate. With me it was ephemeral; I was always fighting to re-kindle the flame.

All of my friends were still with me, Tatsuno now a fighter pilot. Ah, to be a fighter pilot, to be with my friends against the enemy. That had always been my dream. But it was a tattered and fading dream already. Some of us were bound to make our final, one-way trip soon, no matter how good we were. Who would be first?

Daily I went through our routine suicide practice. Methodically I performed each dive— with absolute precision now, near perfection, but little satisfaction. Mechanically I performed the exercise, begin­ning with a leaden feeling in the stomach that swelled throughout my throat, expanding into dread. More than once the words came: “Go on, go on! Don’t stop! Crash! It will all be over in an instant. No more fear, no more waiting, no more sorrow.” And always I would pull out, calling myself a coward.

In addition, there were the occasional air battles, most of them only quick scraps or sorties, in which we struck swiftly and fled. Invariably, the enemy outnumbered us, and our lives were now dedicated to some­thing more vital than a mere air skirmish. Japan was like a man dying in the desert with little water left. The remaining drops had to be used sparingly, saved for the hours when the sun would burn its fiercest.

As the months faded, Japan began to reel, losing her grip on eastern China. The heart of Tokyo had been demolished, and our entire home­land was being ravaged. Millions of tons of our merchant shipping had been sunk, and by the Emperor’s birthday in April of 1945, the enemy was assaulting Okinawa, Japan’s very doorway.

It was a crucial time. Premier Suzuki had told the Japanese cabinet, “Our hopes to win the war are anchored solely in the fighting on Oki­nawa. The fate of the nation and its people depends on the outcome.” Okinawa fell. Eighty-one days of violent battle.

The months squirmed by, and one day in May it happened—Oka and Yamamoto. I had returned from a flight over Shikoku and heard the news. I hadn’t seen either of them for two or three days because we had been flying different shifts on reconnaissance. And now it had come, what I had been fearing all along but never fully accepted. The orders had been issued suddenly, and my friends and been transferred within the hour to Kagoshima. Oka and Yamamoto, gone! I could not believe it and rushed to their barracks. Surely they could not have been swept away so quickly!

The door creaked as I entered, and I gazed down the long line of cots. The bedding was gone from two of them, the thin, worn mattresses rolled, leaving only the barren springs. There was something ghastly about those beds; the naked springs cried out. I opened their empty lockers and heard their hollow clang, a death knell.

Dazed, I slumped down on one of the empty cots, feeling it sag. It was as if Oka and Yamamoto had been carried off by a sudden gale. How could such a thing have happened? No time, no notice, but of course it was probably best that way. I sat there alone, and for a while there was nothing but silence, not even the sound of motors. For several minutes I stared at the floor, on through it. Saw nothing, felt nothing. It was too much to comprehend. The place was a void.

No telling how long I sat there, insensible. Eventually I actually dozed for a moment then startled awake as a hand rested on my shoul­der. Nakamura. I hadn’t even heard him enter. Without speaking, we looked at each other. Someone was with him. Tatsuno. I extended my own hand uncertainly, and he gripped it.

“You know,” I managed at last, my throat parched. “I had the strangest feeling sitting here. It was as if. . .” My voice cracked. “It was just as if everybody had left. This whole base empty—nobody, nobody anywhere. It was crazy! Have you ever had that kind of feeling?”

“They said to tell you sayonara, Yasbei,” Nakamura said. (My friends were often calling me after the samurai now.) “Still joking, even when they got into the truck.” Nakamura gave a strange laugh. “You know

what Oka said—his last words? He said, ‘You and Yasbei take good care of all our girls in Hiro!’”

I also laughed if only because of the release it provided. Neither of us, or Tatsuno for that matter, ever went to Hiro or the nearby cities. We rarely drank and knew little of the city women with whom our ex – trovertish friends had consorted.

For an instant I recalled my times with our two departed, remem­bering how we became well acquainted that winter night so long ago when I’d found the warm shower. They had been joking then and never stopped. Even in combat they joked, two of a kind, always together. Ironically they would die together, perhaps already had.

“But why did they go so soon? Good pilots, both of them!” I asked.

“Yes, pretty good,” Nakamura replied, “but lone wolves, maybe a little erratic. The days of the lone wolves are gone.”

“I know, Nakamura,” I said, “but look at some of the other pilots in this squadron—not half as good, not half as good!”

“Maybe they’re putting the names in a hat now,” Tatsuno suggested. “That way it’s more entertaining. That way, you don’t know whether it will come in five minutes or five months.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “Take a walk—anything.”