Burial in the Clouds (25 page)

Rumor has it that Usa Air Station will be disbanded as of May 1. We'll be dispersed to bases all around the country. Some of us may undergo training in ground combat, though, again, probably as a part of a special attack force. It doesn't really matter, but still I want to die in the sky, if possible. It seems our recent military gains are far too small, given the number of radio messages that come into the base. What's more, considering what we
do
hear, the enemy force doesn't seem to be at all weakened. Their landing force has advanced up to four kilometers on Shuri. Why is this happening? When special attack aircraft target a battleship or an aircraft carrier and shift into position for a charge, they send out a coded message such as “I will now attack.” Some speculate that many of the planes are downed by antiaircraft fire between the time they send this message and the time they actually reach the target, and that's why the results are disappointing. I don't know what to think. It just makes me anxious.

From one of the classrooms echoed the chorus of “Der Leiermann.”

April 21

We were raided twice by B-29s.

I was assistant officer of the day today. At one point I left the OD's room and stepped into the gun room to have breakfast. The moment my chopsticks touched the rice bowl the desk heaved upwards and thrashed me in the face. Before I knew it, I was crawling on the floor amid the clay debris of the walls. As I made my way out of the room, I noticed a man off to my side, already dead. I still don't know who it was.

We had received word early on that some B-29s had left their base in the Marianas, but the Kure Naval District stood down to Defense Condition 2 at around eight twenty, and, following suit, our base issued the “all clear.” So we were taken by surprise. Ten B-29s attacked at eight thirty, and twelve more came in at eight forty-five, dropping one bomb right in front of the OD's room, and another onto the telegraph room next to it. If I hadn't left the OD's room to have breakfast, I would, to say the very least, have been seriously injured. During the second raid, the sentry at the gate, a veteran in his mid-forties, lost his head. He kept running around and screaming, neglecting to take shelter. We had to punch him to get him to lie down on the ground. My eardrums had had it, and for a while I lived in a mute world. It was a trifling raid, but it inflicted enormous casualties, and the death toll neared two hundred. That figure includes seven carrier attack bomber students and two carrier bomber students. It was unfortunate that many of the men were gathered at the breakfast table at the time of bombing, since the alarm had been called off. The biggest mistake was that Usa Air Station had been under the jurisdiction of Kure Naval Station, when it should naturally have been under Sasebo.

A body without a head, an arm without a body, and what looked like a lump of guts. In addition, agonizing howls from the medical ward, as surgeons amputate legs without anesthetic.

Time bombs scattered about the airfield have put it totally out of commission. We have difficulty communicating orders, and make little progress recovering bodies. I go out with a pail to pick up stray hands, or legs with the shoes still on. A brain bisected by shards from a bomb looks like a cross section taken along a fault line. As was the case with Fujikura, men who die from injuries like this shed very little blood.

Ensign Makita's sister happened by for a visit this afternoon, the very day when he was severely injured and now lay in critical condition. She was granted special permission to see him, though he didn't acknowledge her. She insisted on staying to look after her brother, but the request was denied. She left the base, her eyes red, saying she would remain in Beppu to monitor his condition. It's strange how family members sometimes pay a visit just after a man is killed in action, or on the day he is to make his sortie.

The girls' school we were using as barracks was also struck by firebombs and burned to the ground. I lost my shoes, but my clothing was saved. I'm truly sorry for the girls. I haven't eaten anything since morning, except for one rice ball, at around two in the afternoon. I have been too agitated all day to feel any hunger. Dinner was hardtack, which I soon tired of. Hardtack makes me parched as all hell.

Slept in a bunker along the Yakkan River. Incessant groans during the night. Then I heard men talking nearby, “It's heavy,” “Yeah, it sure is,” as they carried away a victim who had just died.

April 23

Each division dug a pit today to burn the one hundred fifty bodies we've so far managed to recover. Lieutenant Ioka's wife attended the cremation, their newborn baby in her arms. Come to think of it, I can't count anymore just how many bodies we've buried along this riverside.

In the afternoon, we began repairing the airfield. Time bombs still explode now and then, making the work quite dangerous. The flames of the funeral pyres died down in the early evening, but the bodies hadn't yet been consumed. Ensign Kado's midsection still remained pretty much intact. It might have bled if you poked it with a stick. Now I can watch and listen as the flesh of my comrades is seared on scorched galvanized sheet metal, without so much as a shudder. I guess I've grown extremely insensitive to death. As for my own life, however, I still seem to possess a strong instinct to protect that. I flee, like a streak of lightning, before I even know it. I have no clue as to what may happen when I dive into my target. But anyway I have no attachment to personal belongings, to clothing or any other property. I do regret just a little, though, that I loaned Mokichi's
Winter Clouds
to T. It burned up, along with the chest of drawers he kept it in.

After the sun set, we went to the farmer's house on top of the hill to use their bath. I looked at the beautiful roses in their yard as I waited my turn. A big moon showed itself on the way back.

April 28

Operation Kikusui, Number 4, has begun. Today, our country mounted a full-scale attack on Okinawa. As far as Usa Air Station is concerned, however, the whole thing is someone else's affair, and no wonder: we don't have any airplanes. Questionable rumors of our transfer are still making the rounds. The story goes that the carrier attack bomber division will be transferred either to Hyakuri-hara, in Ibaraki Prefecture, or else to Chitose, in Hokkaido.

An enemy task force of fourteen aircraft carriers has been sighted at Okinawa. All I can do is pray for the country. We live in the cave now, a dark, smelly, dank existence. Our clothes get damp within a day's time, and it is quite chilly at night. It seems I caught a cold, as my temperature approached thirty-nine degrees. I received a blow on the chin for looking so languid. I don't know what to think about hitting someone simply because he has a fever. But no matter. We will endure it, come what may. We fashioned a canvas canopy to prevent the dirt from falling down on us, and to pretty the place up a bit we displayed some dolls and neatly spread out the blankets that escaped the fire. But the lights are hardly on at all throughout the day.

The riverside is very pleasant in the morning. I tread across the wet sand to wash my face, and notice the tracks of a wagtail, or some other little bird, patterning the beach. Small translucent fish cling to the riverbed under the currents that gently roll in from the sea. When I rinse my mouth, the water clouds up from the toothpaste, obscuring them. Before long, Baku, the dog the carrier bomber group keeps, turns up from somewhere and hangs around, wagging its tail. Such is my morning routine. Baku is a shaggy mutt. Recently, she gave birth to puppies, which are so adorable I don't know what to say. We attack bomber crews plan to adopt one of them, but we have to wait a little while longer, until they are weaned.

I guess I'm lucky to have survived this long, but the thought of it gives me a pang. We form the backbone of this base. We are the most senior aircrews under the commander now, with the exception of a few recon men from the 13th Class. More than two-thirds of the former 13th Class students have been killed at the front. Now the fate of the nation entirely depends on how
we
die.

We need more fuel and aircraft.

May 3

We were granted an excursion for the first time in forty-nine days. I've recovered from my cold. I stopped by a number of places, the Kajiya Inn in Kamegawa, the bookstore, Senbiki-ya, and the barbershop in Beppu. Wherever I went, everybody was stunned, as if I'd returned from Hell or something. I got a hearty welcome. The beer was good, as were the summer oranges, and the Spanish mackerel sashimi was delicious.

“How is Ensign Fujikura?”

“How about Mr. Sakai?”

Each time I was asked these questions, I had to tell the story again of how their lives had ended. In reply, some could say nothing more than “Right...”, their eyes brimming with tears.

“I really don't want any more of you to die,” one woman said. “Isn't there any way at all to end this war?” Actually, this was the proprietress of the barbershop. I was at a loss as to what to say to her.

“That's just not how it works,” I said cheerfully, making a perfunctory reply. “This is only the beginning.”

The era when the special attack force was sanctified is over with. Nobody in the navy considers it “special” now. Only the newspapers keep deifying it, vulgarly, habitually. And now that the mystique has been dispelled, we all feel freer to express our anguish as ordinary men. I guess this means that, emotionally anyway, we feel a bit more natural, and our minds are more at ease. However, when his time comes, every crewman departs wearing a lovely, graceful expression. Probably I will, too, and yet when I hear words like those of the barber, I'm suddenly overcome with longing for the “free” world again, and I start thinking, say, about my mother.

After being confined to base for so long, I enjoyed the excursion immensely, but by the time the sun went down and I headed back, I was seized with an indescribable loneliness, as always at the end of an outing. A swarm of river crabs was crawling out of a cliffside onto the street. As I approached, they watched me warily, bodies half withdrawn back into their holes. Then I went after the ones on the street, and they scurried away angrily, red claws raised. I loitered there for a while, goofing around with the crabs. I was lonesome.

At last, Germany has surrendered. The sword is broken, the quiver is empty. The Red Army has virtually seized Berlin. Hamburg Radio, the only station still in German hands, has announced that Hitler died on the afternoon of May 1. Admiral Doenitz has been appointed supreme commander of the armed forces, but I guess his duty will essentially be to negotiate the terms of surrender. I also hear that Mussolini was captured and killed, his body exposed in a square in Milan.

May 7

Some forty B-29s assaulted the base this morning, badly damaging the apron. There weren't many casualties, as we had been on full alert, but the time bombs prevent us from going out. They blow up now and then, like land mines, kicking a cloud of dust more than a hundred meters into the air. Judging from this, the enemy's bombs must be more powerful than our 800 kg No.80s. The fierce blasts even reach our cave, five hundred meters from the airfield.

A group of army planes called the “Toryu” intercepted the enemy, achieving some results. One charged into a B-29, taking it down on Mt. Hachimen. A few enemy fliers bailed out in parachutes, and Ensign Nikaido and I set out to capture them. We combed the hill with the help of a civil defense unit and managed to seize two men toward evening. They emerged with their hands up, looking carefree. They were both twenty-two, and roughly correspond to trainees in our country, or so it appears. One is a Sergeant Romance, and I forgot the name of the other. Sgt. Romance was a gunner on the port side. When he saw a Japanese fighter closing in from the left, he instinctively judged that it would smash into the plane, and he bailed out in a panic. He actually had the nerve to say that he was hungry, and as we passed through Nakatsu, he waved his hands, smiling at the crowd that had gathered out of curiosity. I don't know if I should properly call him ingenuous or hateful. Either way, it's astonishing to see how utterly his temperament differs from ours. When showered with blows, he frowns a bit, but then he looks as if nothing at all had happened. Seeing as how we had suffered such heavy casualties from the bombings, some among us were in an uproar, and insisted that we rough the Americans up. However, we received strict orders as to the handling of the prisoners. As for Romance and his comrade, they seem to have no fear at all for their safety. Apparently, they assume U.S. forces will rescue them soon enough.

Today, word came that we'll be transferred to Hyakuri-hara. Each is to board the train at his convenience and leave here on the 11th. Usa Naval Air Station will be disbanded.

At sunset, the naval ensign was lowered. We saluted in the cave, from a distance. All the buildings on the base are in ruins. Watching the flag slowly go down for the last time in the tranquil evening sun, I felt deep emotion. Usa was severe, but all the more rewarding for it. With Beppu nearby, we were blessed with a hot spring and plentiful food. Also, we sent off so many of our friends from this place. They will never come back.

Hyakuri-hara is situated in the most out-of-the-way place in Ibaraki Prefecture. There isn't a house for twelve kilometers in any direction, I hear. It's also a long way to the nearest railway station. Enjoyable outings will be pretty much out of the question.