Burial in the Clouds (22 page)

February 8

We flew yesterday. Alcohol fuel isn't as bad as I had feared, and I'm gaining confidence. The airflow is good, and it's easy to pull into the approach path. I fluffed it once, though, during my second flight. The movements of hands and feet are organically linked, and, given the speed at which everything must happen during takeoffs and landings, you can blow the whole thing with one little mistake.

“Come on, now. You'll have to fly solo soon,” said Lt.jg S., repeatedly.

It started to snow. When you're up in the air, the flakes strike your face with tremendous speed, and that, together with the pressure of the wind, hurt my throat a little. Once the snow began to pile up, flights were canceled, and we were placed on the Saturday schedule.

Liberty today. Yesterday's snow froze over, and there was a distinct chill in the air. My shoes kept slipping on the ice, which made it a nuisance to walk. Three submarines lay at anchor in the Sea of Beppu, together with a submarine tender. One of them was huge, its gunwale curving up at the bow, which made it look more like a destroyer when viewed head-on. On the train we happened across a crowd of submariners. Their skin was brown with grime, and they stank to high heaven. Many more were at the inn in Kamegawa, and every one of them stank. I have nothing but respect for these men who have only just returned from a long and trying operation. Still, I have to say it, they really
do
stink. Because the inn was thronged with crewmen from the submarines, guys from our base, and also civilians, men and women bathed together. Well, the young women are certainly bold in Kyushu. It was embarrassing for me, and I felt awkward and strange.

From the train, I saw a big snowman in a stretch of snow on the western side of the tracks, dingy from the smoke of the locomotives.

The situation at the front in the Philippines is just retreat after retreat. U.S. troops reportedly charged into Manila on the 3rd, and I fear the city may be completely in their hands by now. The newspapers keep up their constant cry, “We have caused the enemy immense distress!” But the men at the front know they keep retreating without hurting the Americans much, the newsmen know it, and Imperial Headquarters knows it, too. In short, the whole country keeps saying “We have caused the enemy immense distress!” but nobody believes a word of it. I hear they are making bamboo spears round the clock in Tokyo, so as to inspire hostility toward the enemy and boost morale. At the same time, no underground bunkers have yet been constructed, either for the evacuation of civilians, or to protect our arsenal. The menu at Senbiki-ya has dwindled down to one item:
oyako-donburi
with a disproportionate amount of onion.

On the train back, we had a chat with an engineering outfit lately returned from the India-Burma border. All it takes is a few cigarettes to set them blabbing out everything they know. I was disgusted, even though we started it. The train was twenty minutes late, so we ran all the way from Yanagiga-ura Station. I slipped twice on the snow. Fujikura and Sakai slipped, too. Two
Manyo
poems about snow came to mind.

Snow fell heavily

In our town of Asuka.

Only later will it reach

The ancient town of Ohara.

If only I were

With my dear husband,

How delightful it would be

To watch the falling snow!

February 14

I pulled first shift as probational assistant officer of the day. Intelligence came in that an enormous enemy task force, with forty or fifty aircraft carriers at its core, had left its anchorage in the Marianas. We prepared for battle at six in the evening. Then, at 0400 this morning, we were placed on Defense Condition 2. The situation grew tense.

Afternoon flights were canceled. In order to clear the way for fifty Gingas to advance to this base, we moved the carrier attack bombers we use for training out to the off-field hangars. I wheeled aircraft #3 out, puncturing its tire as I forced it to taxi over the rough surface.

The 701st, 501st, and 708th Air Units stationed at this base are all special attack force units, and the petty officers of the 708th, who bunk in the drill hall, are beginning to show unmistakable kinks in their personality as they face death. Last night and again tonight, they got drunk and came over to the barracks, swagger sticks in hand, and told us that, seeing as how they are going to die tomorrow, we should show them a little more consideration. They repeated the phrase “We are going to die tomorrow” like blockheads, and started a scuffle with the whole lot of us students. It is no easy task to make good use of men like this, while leading them into death.

The flag of the Ohka bomber group flies next to the windsock at the field headquarters. Also up is a banner bearing the motto: “Reason above error. Tradition above reason. Power above tradition. Providence over all.” As we were told a while ago, the Ohka is the Japanese answer to the V-1 rocket, a small craft with stubby wings. It rides in the bay of a Type-1 land-based attack bomber until it is time to launch, at which point it leaves the plane, sending the signal · · · ― ·, or “Period,” and then it's farewell to this world. It doesn't matter if you run into trouble, there's no coming back for a second try. The moment an Ohka leaves the mother plane everything reaches its end. The same goes for special attack force pilots. But the Ohka men are gloomy and warped, while the Ginga crews are sunny, and the crews of the Type-1's just hang loose.

At night, the Gingas flew in and landed, one by one. In keeping with the blackout order, only the red hazard lights burned, as if to suggest the turn of fate.

February 16

No advance by the enemy task force yesterday. The sortie was canceled. No flights at all.

During flight training today, news poured in. Carrier-based planes raided the Kanto area, and Yokohama and Kono-ike Air Stations are both presently under attack. Ten land-based attack bombers were sent up at Kono-ike. The capital appears to be suffering blow after blow. Chichi-jima and Iwo-jima also suffered raids.

About twenty Type-96s advanced to this base from Toyohashi. Having mobilized some fifty land-based attack bombers, and an equal number of Gingas, Usa is set to become the largest single rendezvous point for special attack force aircraft. Still, the Ohka Units will not go out just yet. Obviously, they intend to draw the enemy in closer. In the early evening, eighteen Gingas took off, headed for Kanoya in Kagoshima Prefecture.

Some of us are to receive accelerated training, myself included. I thought a full year would pass before I died, but it looks now as if it will be a matter of months.

February 18

Got up at five and prepared to meet the enemy planes. The 501st Air Unit has been on standby since midnight. The motors were kept running all through the night. I felt the roar of the propellers in my gut. Ifl don't brace for it, eyes wide open, I get nauseated. At ground level, the air is heavy and the resistance is stiff, and if you rev up the engines too much you overwork the pistons, which eventually cease to fire normally. Making a racket—pow! pow! pow!—they actually inhibit the spin of the propellers. The maximum limit at ground level is a zero millimeter boost. Zero out the lever and your eardrums all but burst.

At around noon, the crews assembled outside the field headquarters. The order to launch was issued at the report that the enemy had been sighted offshore at Cape Muroto and also at Ariake Bay. Our men will rally at Kanoya Air Station, and, a few hours later, proceed on their special attack missions. We exchanged farewell cups of water, and lined up at an angle along the airstrip to see the planes off, waving our caps. Eighteen Gingas bore the men away. Some waved their caps from the cockpit, others gave salutes. Those who took the trouble to taxi toward us before gliding on to the takeoff point, or who stood up in the front reconnoiterers' seat, all appeared to be our predecessors from the 13th Class, men from Keio, Waseda, and Tokyo Universities. As they left the ground, the men thrust the tips of their hands from the signalman's seat and waved to us, vigorously. The hands grew smaller and smaller as the planes gathered speed and quickly slipped out of sight. A tightness gripped my throat. Afterwards, we dispersed the remaining aircraft.

February 22

Turned out to be a disappointment. Four days have passed. Nothing happened.

On the 19th, we watched as the Gingas returned. We did hear reports that our side sank two enemy aircraft carriers, and also some battleships and cruisers, but I have to say these successes are insignificant. We never employed our main force after all. If we lay onto a mere handful of aircraft the responsibility of determining the nation's fate, as if in an effort to put them to their best and highest use, then inevitably our strategy will be a passive one.

The enemy took a full swing before turning back. After receiving reports that their task force was moving, we have heard nothing at all. Ten thousand hostile men landed on Iwo-jima. Should the airfields on this island fall into American hands, Tokyo and Osaka will be within range of whole fleets of enemy fighters and bombers.

Last night's snow piled up nearly ten centimeters high, but it's the wet kind. The sun is strong and the air is warm. It's a fair spring day, and I want to strip down a bit and bask in it. The season has arrived when (as a
Manyo
poet has it) “the brackens / By the waterfall / Burst into leaf.” G. says that the dandelions may be out. The larks are already singing.
Kyushu isn't half bad,
I said to myself,
and it's not bad to be alive, either.

We had a snowball fight. This snow sure packs hard. We wrestled each other, of energy, and made a big snowman. Afterwards we dug up some fresh snow to eat with coffee syrup. Delicious.

Last night, the Ginga men went on a bender, guzzling that rationed sake called “Taiheiyo” (“The Pacific Ocean”). As they wound down, they flocked together and wept. This afternoon, one by one, they departed for Izumi, kicking up snow as they rose from the airstrip. We saw them off.

For the first time in ages, I got a letter from my aunt in Kobe. Brandishing the envelope, which bore her name, Hatsuko Miyoshi, in ink, the instructor demanded fifty sen. (We get fined every time we receive a letter from a woman.) “No,” I protested. “It's from my aunt. She's fifty-eight years old. I just contributed five yen the other day, when I hung my plane up on a pothole. Come on, just give me a break, will you?” He didn't. I had to pay. My aunt says some one hundred B-29s raided Kobe on the 4th of this month, inflicting heavy damage. The Miyoshi residence, however, was safe.

March 1

Fujikura is dead.

It happened during training this morning. After I landed, Fujikura climbed into plane #6 for its third flight. Right after takeoff, though, he lifted the nose too high, sending the plane into a stall, and in a flash he had crashed, left wing first. I ran out to the spot. The control stick was embedded in his face, his eyeballs dangled down around his lips, and the back of his head, all whitish, was split open. He was dead, without much bleeding. The impact threw the engine ten meters away from the fuselage. The main left wing had been sheared away by the rocks, and the tail was shattered. At around 1027 on the morning of March 1, Showa 20, Fujikura ended his twenty-five years of life. Senior Aviation Petty Officer B., also on board, was rushed off to the medical ward on a rescue unit stretcher. His face was swollen to twice its normal size, and he suffered deep gashes, but it looks like he will survive. Murase and I stayed behind to tend to Fujikura's body, while everybody else resumed their flights in the afternoon. Sakai stopped by later. After dinner, we held a wake for Fujikura in the lounge.

The winds blew in from the east today, bringing spring with them. We all took off our uniforms and changed into light and airy fatigues. Fujikura had been wearing a snow-white, open-neck shirt at morning assembly, and the image of it remains in my mind. I try not to let my feelings overcome me, but tears fill my eyes as scattered reminiscences of Fujikura flood my mind: The man who smuggled oranges in his gaiters and shared them with us on a day when we were allowed visitors but no food or drink back at Otake Naval Barracks. The man who, during our farewell party at the Fukais' house, sang, with a straight face, a song titled “Draw the Lamp and Catch the Lice,” all the while gazing up at the ceiling. The man who so sternly rebuked me for having struck a petty officer by the swimming pool. The man who taught me the difference between a blue flag iris and a rabbit-ear iris at Kutai Temple during the
Manyo
trip we made in the spring of Showa 18 (after which we engaged in a day-long debate as to whether asthmaweed and horseweed are actually the same).

I don't know how to handle the notices to his family, to Professors O. and E., and to the Fukais. In the meantime, I at least have to notify Kashima in Kawatana.

He had to die sooner or later, and in his case it's not quite right to say he must regret having fallen before ever realizing his wish to go to the front. We had few opportunities during the last month or two to sit down and talk, even when we made an outing. As a matter of fact, Fujikura rather seemed to want to avoid talking, and it appeared that something had been troubling him. My guess is that he just couldn't reconcile himself to the idea of embarking on a special attack mission, and that he agonized, unable to distract himself from it all, day after day. If that's the case, I really should consider this accident a blessing in disguise, as an unlooked-for death took him before he ever had to face the real anguish.