Xu Lei - Search for the Buried Bomber

The flashlight had already dimmed considerably, but even still, from atop the wing I had a much clearer view of the plane’s lower half. The Shinzan must have hit the water unevenly, tail end first. The nose still rose above the surface. The tail was some distance off, too far away for me to see clearly. I stood atop the broken wing between its two giant engines. I could make out the twisted shapes of the three-bladed propellers below, sunk halfway into the river and already too rusted to spin. The front of the plane was divided into upper and lower sections. The bottom section, just above the nose, was the machine-gun cabin. Its glass-and-steel exterior was smashed to pieces, leaving only the frame, half of which was underwater. Above this was the cockpit, its windows at least partially intact. A rotating gun turret sat atop the plane in the middle of its body, seemingly undamaged. The parts of the plane that had sunk underwater were already so rusted none of their original green coating could be seen. Holes had opened in the walls of the engine room. It had been sitting here for more than twenty years, getting water-washed the whole time. Above the surface it still looked all right. I could see a vague “07” written along the nose in huge characters, though the rest of the marks were unclear. I had seen this plane on a filmstrip just three days ago, the image smaller than a fingernail. Standing upon it now, deep beneath the earth, I couldn’t believe it. There really was a giant plane! That’s what I said to myself at the time. My God, I thought, there really is a bomber down here!

But we were told it had been disassembled before being moved into the cave. Why did it appear to have crashed down right here? Had the Japanese tried to fly it over the underground river and failed in the attempt? I craned my neck and shined my flashlight upward, trying to see how high the cave went. The beam failed to illuminate the ceiling, but it was obvious there wasn’t nearly enough room for a plane to take off. Why on earth would the Japanese have wanted to fly a plane down here?

My perspective of the plane was limited from my perch atop the wing. Moreover, the flashlight was gradually dimming and would soon go out. I had no choice but to stop and figure out my next move. By now I had regained my strength, or should I say that in my curiosity I forgot the terror and exhaustion I had just felt? I also knew that we’d be done for without a light down here. I proposed to the deputy squad leader that we climb into the plane and take a look around. Perhaps there’d be something inside we could use to light our way. At the very least we needed to see if it would provide us with some shelter from the wind. To remain bare to the waist out on the wing was a terrible idea. The deputy squad leader had used up far more of his strength than I. He was out of his mind with exhaustion, as if comatose. I asked him what was the matter, but he just nodded and said nothing. I had no choice but to knead his body to warm him up. Only after his skin had reddened was I comfortable letting him stay behind. Then I headed for the cabin.

The section between the wing and the nose had sunk into the river, forcing me to wade across. I cautiously stepped from one gunnysack to the next. Once more I caught sight of that massive “07,” as well as the smaller characters written underneath, but they were much too vague and I had no time to closely examine them. After wading all the way to the machine gunner’s cabin, I wriggled in through a gap in the twisted steel.

The cabin interior was pitch-black, but it felt different from the darkness outside, not as hopeless. In here at least there were objects for my flashlight to illuminate. I could feel the distorted steel plates of the cabin walkway through my shoes. The first thing I saw was the ruined remains of a machine gunner’s chair, its leather cover already unrecognizable, leaving only a rusted iron form. All around me the inner walls of the plane were riven with cracks and hung with snaking electrical wires, the majority of which had already bonded together into a dark and indistinct mass. In front of the seat was the half-destroyed remnant of some kind of stand—probably a mount for the machine gun, but now all that was left was the frame. Standing on the machine gunner’s seat, I looked back down through the plane. The passenger and cargo compartments were too flooded for me to proceed, but the iron ladder to the pilothouse overhead was somehow still intact. Taking great care, I began to climb.

The tail end of the plane had received the brunt of the impact. The pilothouse was therefore relatively undamaged. After climbing in, I first came upon the copilot’s seat. A layer of rust and shattered glass had fused together across the floor. I shined my flashlight around the cockpit. Leaning over the top of the captain’s seat was a leather aviation helmet of the Japanese air force.

It was the pilot’s shriveled corpse, as I had expected. As the body rotted it had melded with the seat behind it and now they were stuck together, a single form. Its mouth was especially distended, gaping wide open. This corpse was indeed Japanese, and from many years past. I shined my flashlight slowly along its length, inspecting it in detail. I gasped. Looking around the pilothouse, I could tell there hadn’t been a fire, but the corpse had somehow turned bluish black and was covered all over in deep hollows. At first glance, it resembled nothing so much as a honeycomb. Initially I assumed the hollows were caused by machine gun fire, but after taking a closer look, I realized I was wrong. These things weren’t “hollows” at all. They were holes opened by the contracting flesh as the body rotted away. This corpse had decomposed very unevenly—some parts of its body had rotted very severely, while others seemed almost untouched.

I grabbed a sheet of iron from beside me and used it to cover the body. Then I returned to the wing, hoisted the deputy squad leader, and carried him back to the pilothouse. Once there, I gathered together everything I could find that seemed as if it might burn—the corpse’s leather helmet and shoes, things like that—and set them alight. Luckiest of all, amid the wreckage of the cabin I found a hydraulic pressure tube. The oil inside had completely dried, leaving only a layer of black mudlike substance. After I scraped it out and burned it together with the tube itself, the temperature in the pilothouse became quite satisfactory. The flame was small, but for us it was some kind of salvation. Our cuts stopped bleeding, our clothes began to dry, and the two of us gradually warmed up.

I still hadn’t decided what our next move should be. Given the situation we were in now, nothing we did would really be of much use. All we could do was wait to be rescued, but who knew whether that was even a possibility. After a while we could find nothing else to keep the fire going. Fortunately our clothing had dried by then. After picking out the leeches that were still inside and throwing them into the coals, we got dressed, crowded around the fire, and lay down. Despite the strangeness of our surroundings and the hundreds of things that might have kept me awake, though my mind was filled with question after question, I fell asleep immediately.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw only darkness. I had no idea how long I’d slept. The fire was out. I’d been warm the whole time I’d slept, but as soon as I opened my eyes I knew something was wrong. Why had I awoken so abruptly and what was this pain in my ears? From outside the wrecked plane came a series of incredibly loud, droning, we ng-weng-weng wails. What kind of noise is that? I wondered. After listening for a moment, I realized—it was a siren! What was a siren doing here? I felt the blood drain from my face. What the hell was going on? Could the power have been restored? During our Attack Preparation classes we’d become all too familiar with this sound. Wasting no time, I climbed through a hole in the pilothouse and on top of the plane.