One Man's Justice (4 page)

Having skirted the town by following the paths through the paddy fields, he climbed up the white stone steps of the local shrine. Both the inner sanctuary and the shrine office were cloaked in darkness. He remembered coming here to pray with the villagers before joining the Imperial Army, standing among them in his university hat and uniform, the national flag slung over his shoulder. Pausing in the shrine gateway, Takuya took off his service cap and bowed toward the inner sanctuary.

Leaving the precincts of the shrine and its conspicuous smell of bark, Takuya followed a narrow, sinuous track cut into the hill behind the shrine. He had walked this path so many times when he was small that he knew it like the back
of his hand, so he made steady progress over the protruding roots and potholes.

Takuya stopped under the boughs of a large pine. Below him, by the light of the moon, he could see the cluster of dwellings that made up the village where his family lived. There were about thirty houses, dotted along either side of the winding path, strung out between the hill where he was standing and the low knoll directly opposite. The sun rose from behind the hill overlooking the shrine and set behind the knoll on the other side of the village, so sunrise was late and sunset was early. The village was blessed with soil good enough to offset the shorter sunlight hours, which provided quality crops, especially mandarin oranges, for those working the land. The woods around the village were home to countless nightingales, whose pleasant warbling filled the air from early spring until autumn. This gave the village its name, Ohshuku.

Takuya's eyes traced the barely visible path through the village down to the area around his family's house at the foot of the hill. No sign of anyone on the path and no movement around the house.

Two dogs appeared on the path, trotting more or less side by side. They passed directly beside the house, then crossed the wooden bridge over the little stream. Takuya relaxed somewhat – clearly the animals were not distracted by anything unusual around the house – but, just in case, he pulled the pistol out of his rucksack, loaded it and stuffed it in his belt before making his way down the slope.

Scanning the area, he cut through an open patch of weeds and jumped over the little brook. A light was on inside his
house. When he was near the back door he could tell from the sound of running water that either his mother or his younger sister was washing something in the kitchen.

Takuya opened the door. His mother, standing in front of the sink, turned and welcomed him home. In the back room, his father sat hunched forward under an electric lamp, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose as he read a newspaper. Making haste was Takuya's most pressing concern. Before long the peaceful world his family enjoyed would be shattered by the arrival of those seeking his capture. If they came while Takuya was still at home, the disruption would be all the greater for his family.

His mother asked if he had eaten but Takuya went straight into the living-room without answering. His father looked up. Takuya made sure his mother had gone back to her task at the sink before sitting down in front of his father.

In a quiet but deliberate voice, Takuya explained to his father how on the fifteenth of August the previous year, after the broadcast of the imperial rescript announcing Japan's surrender, he had taken part in the execution of American prisoners of war who had parachuted from disabled B-29 bombers. Now American military intelligence was on his trail and his capture was probably only a matter of time.

His father listened aghast.

‘I have to go into hiding right away. I'm sorry … but can you give me some money please?' he said, fixing his eyes on the old man's face.

For a few seconds his father said nothing. Then, moving
his gaze a fraction to the side, he whispered, ‘So you've killed an American.'

‘I cut his head off with my sword,' replied Takuya.

The old man stayed sitting where he was, not moving a muscle. A mournful look had come over his face.

Takuya stood up and walked over to his own room, switching the light on as he stepped through the doorway. He pulled out his photo album, stripped it of all the photographs taken since he had reached adulthood, and put them and his letters, diaries and address book in the wastepaper basket. This in hand, he stepped down on to the earth-floor section of the house and pushed the contents into the kitchen stove, lighting the paper with a match. His mother, not seeming to realise what Takuya was burning, dried her hands on her apron and walked into the living-room. He pushed the poker into the fire, checking that the papers were reduced to ashes before stepping back into the living-room.

There was a pile of notes on the low table in the middle of the room. To deal with the inflation that followed immediately after the war, the government had restricted the amount of money any householder could withdraw from a bank to three hundred yen per month, and one hundred yen per family member. Takuya knew that without the money on the table his family would inevitably struggle, yet he knelt down, took the notes, and stuffed them into the inside pocket of his jacket. His mother looked on apprehensively as she poured tea for the three of them. His father removed his glasses and sat motionless, staring vacantly into a corner.

Takuya rose to his feet and walked a couple of steps to the chest of drawers. He pulled out some socks and underwear and stuffed them into his rucksack along with a grey army blanket he took from the cupboard. His mother offered cups of green tea to the two men.

‘Are you going somewhere?' asked his mother, looking inquisitively at her son.

‘I have to go away. I'll be off in a few minutes,' he replied as he tied the cord on his rucksack.

‘What? Tonight? It's late,' said his mother sharply.

‘Where are Toshio and Chiyoko?' He thought he should see his brother and sister before he left.

‘Chiyoko is in bed. She's coming down with a cold. Toshio is on the night shift. He won't be home for another hour or so,' replied his mother incredulously.

Takuya took a sip of the tea, picked up his rucksack, and got to his feet. He stepped into his shoes on the earth floor of the kitchen area.

‘Why can't you go tomorrow?' asked his mother, her tone now slightly angry.

He swung his rucksack over his shoulder, opened the back door and stepped outside. His father slipped on his mother's clogs and followed him out. Takuya turned round to face his father, took off his service cap, and bowed his head.

‘If they catch you they'll hang you, won't they?' the old man said hoarsely. Takuya nodded.

His father said, ‘Go to the Sayama family in Osaka. They'll help you.' He handed his son a small parcel. Takuya nodded, then turned and walked away. He jumped over the little stream and headed straight across the grassy patch, on
to the slope of the path up the hill. Like an animal trusting its natural instinct of self-preservation, Takuya decided that the safest way to return would be along the path he had used to come to the village.

He climbed the track at a brisk pace before pausing under the pine tree halfway up the hill. He looked down over the village, now half shrouded in a rising mist. The houses and the path were barely visible through the pale white murk, with only a few faint strips of light escaping from windows here and there.

Takuya opened the little package his father had handed him. Under two layers of paper were some two dozen cigarettes. To a father who would cut cigarettes in thirds with a razor and then smoke them stuffed parsimoniously into a pipe, these must have been even more valuable than money.

He sat down on one of the exposed roots of the pine tree, put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. Having managed to get in and out of the family house safely, he felt somewhat relieved. He'd disposed of his remaining belongings, he had enough money to tide him over for a while, and he had a loaded pistol tucked in his belt. Even if a would-be captor spotted the light from his cigarette and rushed to catch him, Takuya was confident he could escape in the darkness over the track to the shrine and then beyond.

Only the faint gurgling of the little stream below broke the silence. He gazed at the area across the stream where his family house was. It was a small house for five people. Takuya had been born and raised in that house, and had commuted to middle school from there on the advice of his
public servant father. He had gone on to high school and then to Kyushu Imperial University, paying what he could of the tuition by tutoring and delivering newspapers. Upon graduation he had gone straight into the Imperial Army. His younger brother, Toshio, had just graduated from a community college. Takuya's father had let him go on to university despite having to struggle on a meagre salary from the town civic office because he expected that Takuya would eventually take over the role of family breadwinner. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined his son stealing away from the family home in the middle of the night.

Takuya wondered how his family's position might be affected in the days and months to come. If it became public that his son was suspected of war crimes, Takuya's father might lose the job he'd held for so many years. The police would likely be pitiless in their pursuit, and would no doubt maintain the strictest surveillance over his family. Even the other people in the village might turn cold towards them. Takuya took comfort in the thought that, whatever happened, his family would understand that he had done nothing more than his duty as a military man, and that he was in no way a criminal. Surely that would give them the strength to endure the hardships that lay ahead, and he hoped that his brother and sister would look after his parents in his absence.

He stubbed out the remaining embers of the cigarette, took the pistol from his belt, unloaded it, and stuffed it between the folds in the blanket inside his rucksack. As he stood up and took one last look at his birthplace, the
thought that he would likely never again set foot in the village, and just as likely never again see his brother and sister or his parents, saddened him.

Breathing in the cool night air, he set off again along the path. Around him in the darkness he could hear the chirps and cries of birds and the flutter of wings as they moved from branch to branch under the forest canopy.

He crossed through the precincts of the shrine and quickened his pace as he made his way along the paths between the paddy fields. The moon had progressed along its arc across the heavens, and by now was much higher in the sky. Takuya looked around as he hurried toward the station. Again, just to be safe, he wanted to board the train at least one stop down the line. A palpable feeling of satisfaction came over him. At last he was on the run and, at least for the moment, in control of his own destiny. It was similar to the feeling of suspense he had felt in the pit of his stomach when he was the officer in charge of the anti-aircraft defence operations room.

The lights of an incoming train came into view as it skirted round a hill and then straightened out alongside the river. Zigzagging through the paddy fields, Takuya drew steadily toward the tracks.

The train rumbled forward, spilling only a modicum of light on the outside world. Takuya stopped and watched as the train turned to the left in a long arc. The engineer was obviously working hard feeding coal into the boiler, as Takuya could clearly see the red-tinged silhouette of
a man repeatedly bending and twisting in front of the firebox.

Staring at the tail-light of the last carriage as it moved into the distance, he started off again.

The first time Takuya set eyes on a crew member of a B-29 Superfortress it made an indelible impression on him.

On 16 June 1944, the bombing attack on Kokura and Yawata by B-29 Superfortresses operating from airfields in China was the first to target mainland Japan.

The first news that long-range heavy American bombers had been seen in China had arrived on the second of April that year, in a telegram from Imperial Army Headquarters in China, and from then on there were continual reports that the US Army Air Force was strengthening its presence around bases in China's Chengdu region. Recognising that this build-up very likely presaged attacks on targets in northern Kyushu, Imperial Headquarters followed the recommendation of Western Regional Command and ordered the Nineteenth Air Force Division, stationed in the northern Kyushu area, to begin preparations for a
strategic defence under the direction of Western Regional Headquarters. Comprising two squadrons, the Nineteenth Air Force Division boasted seventy of the latest fighter planes, and could put thirty in the air at any one time, the pilots all veterans with over five hundred hours in the air. They had carried out hours of practice at night-time interception of heavy bombers, and had rehearsed their angles of attack again and again on a B-17 bomber that had been seized intact and airworthy in the early stages of the war in the Pacific. In conjunction with this preparation, anti-aircraft batteries were deployed in the northern Kyushu area, and joint exercises were carried out with the air force under the direction of Western Command to provide the optimum defensive screen.

At Western Command headquarters, an air defence intelligence unit was set up, and spotters posted to points all over the Korea Strait and Kyushu region, along with twenty-eight electronic detection stations. In addition, an intelligence network was established, involving further spotters, electronic devices and naval vessels outside the defensive perimeter proper.

At 11.31 p.m. on 15 June 1944, a report came in to Western headquarters from the electronic detection post on Cheju island that unidentified aircraft were moving eastwards. Forty-five minutes later, it was reported that the aircraft had crossed the line between Izuhara on Tsushima island and the island of Fukue in the Gotoh archipelago, and had then crossed the line between Izuhara and Hirado in western Kyushu, meaning that the aircraft were travelling at around four hundred kilometres an hour. At first it
was thought that they might be Japanese spotter planes, but none was capable of flying at that speed and, as no friendly aircraft had been reported taking that flight path, it was judged that this intrusion must represent a force of enemy heavy bombers heading for the northern Kyushu area. The tactical operations centre reacted by immediately contacting the Nineteenth Air Force Division and the Western Region anti-aircraft batteries on special hotlines, and Takuya, as duty officer, issued a full air-raid alert for the northern Kyushu area in the commander's name.

Forty-seven aircraft attacked Kokura and Yawata that night, but they met with such determined resistance from fighters that the bombing they did manage before heading back to China was virtually ineffective. Seven American bombers were shot down during the attack.

At Western Command headquarters they had assumed that the intruders were B-17s, but inspections of the wreckage of aircraft shot down near the town of Orio in Fukuoka prefecture and Takasu in Wakamatsu city revealed that the planes were in fact the latest American bomber, the B-29 Superfortress. A crew member's own film of B-29s during flight, discovered amid the wreckage of one plane, confirmed the appearance of the new aircraft.

Subsequently, raids by US bombers based in China were made on Sasebo on the eighth of July; on Nagasaki on the eleventh of August, and on Yawata on the twentieth and twenty-first; on Ohmura on the twenty-fifth of October, the eleventh and twenty-first of November, the nineteenth of December and the sixth of January the following year; but after that the B-29 bases were
switched to Saipan, and attacks from mainland China stopped.

During those months, assisted by pinpoint detection of incoming aircraft by electronic detection stations and spotters, the fighters ensured that bombing damage was kept to a minimum, shooting down a total of fifty-one bombers while losing only nine of their own.

Of the American crew members who baled out of their disabled aircraft, seventeen survived to be taken prisoner. These men were escorted by the
kempeitai
to defence headquarters in Tokyo.

Then B-29s operating from bases in Saipan began a concerted bombing campaign on urban targets such as Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, and in March 1945 they again turned their attention to the Kyushu region. The Nineteenth Air Force Division defence was so effective that the numbers of American airmen parachuting into captivity increased dramatically. Previously such prisoners of war had been escorted to camps in Tokyo by the
kempeitai
, but in early April the Army Ministry issued a directive to Western Regional Command, delegating authority by stating that the crew members should be ‘handled as you see fit'.

Six days after that order was received, a
kempeitai
lorry carrying twenty-four American airmen pulled up at the rear entrance of Western Regional Headquarters. The men were unloaded and shepherded in pairs into cells originally designed to hold local soldiers awaiting court martial.

That evening, together with a staff officer from the tactical operations centre, Takuya was assigned to guard the prisoners in the cells. The captive crewmen had just
been given their evening meal trays, so when Takuya entered the holding cell area he saw tall, well-built men, some brown-haired and some blond, sitting in their cells eating rice balls flavoured with barley, or munching slices of pickled radish.

Takuya stood in the corridor and stared. The prisoners behind the bars were the first American airmen he had ever set eyes upon.

As the officer in charge of the air defence tactical operations centre, Takuya was among the most knowledgeable of the headquarters staff about the Superfortress bomber. Every time B-29 units intruded into the Kyushu region airspace, his staff painstakingly followed their incoming flight path and then tracked them as they headed off over the sea after completing their missions. Details such as the B-29's total wingspan of 43 metres, its wing surface area of 161.1 square metres, its fully laden weight of 47,000 kilograms, its top speed and altitude of 590 kilometres per hour at 9500 metres, its maximum range of 8159 kilometres with a 3-ton load of bombs, its ten 12.7-millimetre machine-guns and one 20-millimetre cannon and its maximum bomb load of 8 tons, were etched into Takuya's mind, and he had become very familiar with the appearance of the Superfortress by examining photographs of the aircraft – both in flight and as wreckage on the ground.

Hours of meticulous study of the B-29 enabled Takuya to deduce the likely target by determining the speed and course of the incoming bombers, and then, by calculating the intruders' time spent in Japanese airspace, how much
fuel remained and, from that, the probable course and timing of their escape route.

To Takuya and his colleagues, who had followed the movements of these aircraft so faithfully since the previous year, the squadron of B-29s were a familiar, almost intimate presence. But now, seeing these American airmen standing and sitting on the other side of the bars, Takuya realised that all along his perception of the enemy had been limited to the aircraft itself, and that somehow he had forgotten there were human beings inside it.

He was surprised that most of them looked to be around twenty years of age, some as young as seventeen or eighteen. It shocked him to think of the Superfortresses he had tracked so meticulously, constructed with the latest equipment and instruments, being manned by young men scarcely past their teens.

Some of the men were the same height as the average Japanese, but most were around six feet tall, and all were endowed with sturdy frames and well-muscled buttocks. To men used to a diet of meat, the rice balls and pickled radish must have hardly even qualified as food. Nevertheless, they munched away at their portions, licking grains of rice off their fingers and biting noisily into the pickles.

Their facial expressions varied. Most avoided eye contact with their captors, but some, whose face muscles were more relaxed, gazed imploringly toward Takuya and his colleague. Others cast frightened glances at them.

In the end cell a fair-haired man lay on a straw-filled futon on the concrete floor, eating a rice ball. A dark bruise from a blow to the face covered the area from his nose to the point
of his right cheekbone, and bandaging on his rib cage was visible through his unbuttoned jacket.

‘This one's been shot with a hunting-rifle,' whispered the slightly built legal officer, appearing suddenly from behind. Takuya looked into the cell as the lieutenant read out the report prepared by the
kempeitai
on this particular American prisoner. The man had been a crew member of a B-29 involved in a night raid on Yawata and Kokura on the twenty-seventh of March. When his plane was hit, he had parachuted into the woods near Ono in the Oita area. People from a nearby village saw this and ran out to find the man, then clubbed him with sticks before shooting him through the shoulder and right lung with a hunting-rifle. Evidently the wounded airman had been handed over to the police by the villagers, and then on to the
kempeitai
, who had arranged for him to receive medical treatment before being transported to Western Regional Headquarters.

The man was obviously aware that people were watching him through the bars, but he ignored them, staring up at the ceiling as he ate. He seemed to Takuya to have long eyelashes and a remarkably pointed nose.

When he heard how the villagers had beaten and shot this American, Takuya realised that despite his being a military man, bound by duty to clash with the enemy, his own feelings of hostility toward the B-29 crews paled in comparison to the villagers'. Up to this point, his contact with the enemy had been limited to information about aircraft detected by electronic listening-devices or seen by spotters. In contrast, inhabitants of the mountain villages no doubt felt intense hatred when they saw B-29s flying
over, as the objective of the bombers' mission was nothing less than the mass slaughter of civilians such as themselves. This hatred was the driving force behind their outbursts of violence toward the downed crew members.

It occurred to Takuya that these twenty-four American airmen in front of him were the embodiment of an enemy which had slaughtered untold numbers of his people. They had come back again and again to devastate Japanese towns and cities, leaving behind countless dead and wounded civilians. The idea that these men were receiving rice balls despite the virtual exhaustion of food supplies for the average Japanese citizen stirred anger in Takuya towards those in headquarters responsible for such decisions.

‘Look at the awful shoes they've got on,' said the officer, with raw contempt in his eyes.

The prisoners' shoes were all made of cloth, reminiscent of those ordinarily worn when embarking on nothing more adventurous than a casual stroll. Some were torn at the seams. Considering the obvious inexperience of the young men manning the bombers, and their cheap footwear, Takuya wondered whether the much-vaunted American affluence was starting to wane.

After that day Takuya was never assigned to watch over the cells, but he took considerable interest in the decision about what to do with the men in them. No doubt the Army Ministry had delegated authority over the airmen because the intensified bombing attacks ruled out transporting prisoners to a central destination. This was evident from the concise wording of the order to ‘handle as you see fit'. Even so, the precise meaning of ‘as you see fit' was unclear.

Takuya thought back to the first raid by North American B-25 medium bombers just four short months after the start of the war. A force of sixteen enemy planes had taken off from an aircraft carrier and flown at low altitude into the Tokyo and Yokohama area to bomb and strafe targets before retreating toward China, where eight men from two planes that crash-landed near Nanchang and Ningpo had been captured by the Imperial Army. A university student at the time, Takuya remembered reading in the newspaper that the captured men had been tried by a military court on charges of carrying out bombing attacks designed to kill and wound non-combatants in urban areas, and strafing defenceless schoolchildren and fishermen. All had been found guilty as charged, and some were sentenced to death, others to terms of imprisonment. Takuya remembered seeing a photograph of the airmen wearing black hoods over their heads as they were led to their execution.

The fact that executions had been carried out after that raid surely left little room for debate over the fate of the twenty-four prisoners now in their custody. Once the B-29s moved their base of operations to Saipan, they began to concentrate their attacks on urban areas in general, as opposed to military installations and munitions factories. The Superfortresses gradually switched their targets, dropping huge quantities of incendiary bombs on medium-sized and even smaller towns outside the Kyushu and Shikoku areas. The extent of the devastation was immense; according to reports from central headquarters, more than a hundred thousand people had already been killed and over nine hundred thousand dwellings razed to
the ground, affecting over two and a half million people. These fire raids were serious violations of the rules of war, so surely the handling of B-29 crew members would not be bound by provisions regarding the custody of normal prisoners of war.

Processing these prisoners began with interrogating them to acquire information which might help headquarters staff in their efforts against the bombing raids, and as the officer in charge of anti-aircraft intelligence, Takuya observed the interrogations. There were general questions about the number of aircraft at the bases in Saipan, as well as about the runways and hangars, followed by more specific questions about the scale of various kinds of facilities and whether or not there were plans for expansion, and then questions about the capabilities of the B-29, its weak points, and the flight paths used to enter and leave Japanese airspace. The interrogations were carried out both individually and in groups, and the captured crew members replied to the questions posed by the interpreter, Lieutenant Shirasaka, with surprising candour. The content of their answers was consistent, and there was no indication whatsoever that they had tried to co-ordinate their approach to the interrogation. All had some signs of fear in their eyes, but every so often one of them would shrug his shoulders, casually gesture with his hands, and even relax the muscles of his face slightly with the hint of a smile.