Naoki Hyakuta - The Eternal Zero

In comparison, the Zuikaku, which had emerged from Coral Sea unharmed, was merely resting back in Japan in the Seto Inland Sea—we had lost the Battle of Midway before it even began.

There’s just one thing I want to praise our side for: the Hiryu, the only one of our four carriers to elude the enemy attack, putting up quite the fight. Led by the indomitable Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi, commander of the Second Division, the Hiryu took on three American carriers all alone after our other three had been taken out. In the end, Hiryu and Yorktown died on each other’s swords. Rear Admiral Yamaguchi went down with the Hiryu. As it happened, Yamaguchi was strongly opposed to Fleet Commander Nagumo’s decision to unload the torpedoes and had advised an immediate launch of our attack forces. He’d also strongly recommended a third wave of attacks on Pearl Harbor.

Lieutenant Joichi Tomonaga, attack force commander of the Hiryu, boldly sortied on a Type 97 attack bomber whose tank had been pierced. He only had enough fuel for a one-way trip.

Had this been a sporting match, after the battle the crews of Yorktown and Hiryu might have praised each other for putting up a good fight, and perhaps friendship could have been forged between the two sides. But this was war. The two ships slaughtered each other, taking many lives along with them.

According to one theory, the loss of so many seasoned pilots in the Battle of Midway was the biggest blow to the Imperial Navy, but that’s not quite true. Most of the aircrew aboard Hiryu, which fought to the end, did perish. But many of us on the three other carriers destroyed at the outset were rescued.

It was at the Battle of Guadalcanal, which began that fall, that we lost droves of seasoned pilots.

—What of Miyabe?

He probably continued to fight until he ran out of fuel and then ditched in the ocean. Or maybe he landed on the Hiryu and took part in the conflict with Yorktown . In any case, he, too, made it back to the interior alive. We never met again, though. The last I saw of him was when he took off from the Akagi. I heard that after Midway he was transferred to Rabaul along with a great number of aircrew.

My eyes were damaged in the bomb blast and my vision was reduced to 20:100, so I could no longer pilot a fighter. After I returned to Japan, I became an instructor for the Preparatory Flight Training Program. Had my eyes been fine, I probably would have been transferred from place to place, and I wouldn’t still be here today. In fact, many of the carrier aircrew stationed at Rabaul ended up perishing in the Solomon Sea.

The Solomon Sea became an airmen’s graveyard. From the latter half of 1942, a notice of transfer to Rabaul was considered a one-way ticket.

I heard that Miyabe survived for over a year in that hellish battlefield. Perhaps his cowardice is what allowed him to extend his lifespan. In the air, the brave are the first to fall. Miyabe was a different sort of man than Flight CPO Kanno, who gave up on ever returning in order to lead a friendly attack force to the enemy on the Coral Sea, or Lieutenant Tomonaga, who sortied at Midway knowing his mission would be one-way only. But Miyabe’s cowardice isn’t grounds for criticism.

I will say this. His skills as a pilot were first rate. I’m a little embarrassed to say this myself, but during the war, being assigned to the First Carrier Division was proof that you were a first-rate pilot. That he survived the living hell that was Guadalcanal was also thanks to his skills as a pilot.

The ice in the iced coffee set before me had long since melted. I had totally forgotten to even take a sip. Former Lt. JG Kanji Ito’s tale had overwhelmed me. I knew next to nothing about the War in the Pacific, so everything he said came as a shock.

The battles may have taken place between aircraft carriers, but in the end it was humans fighting. The forces’ specs weren’t the only factor. Bravery, decisiveness, and cool judgment decided who won or lost, who lived or died.

Still, what a cruel world it was for the soldiers. The battles had happened a mere sixty years ago. My grandfather had fought in them.

According to Ito, my grandfather was not just a cowardly man but also a competent pilot. His words gave me a small amount of consolation.

“So Miyabe died in a kamikaze attack?” Ito suddenly asked.

“Yes, sir. In August 1945, off the southwestern islands.”

“August, eh? Right before the war ended. So they forced pilots as experienced as Miyabe to kamikaze.”

“Was it so rare for skilled pilots to become kamikazes?”

“Most were student reservists or young airmen. The Army and Navy put them through brief training to hurl them at the enemy.” Ito looked pained. “I trained many student reservists myself. It took at least two years to turn someone into a full-fledged pilot, but those guys were given less than a year of flight training. The higher-ups probably thought that was sufficient for suicide attacks.”

Tears shone in Ito’s eyes again.

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“It was. But tactically speaking, it was a waste to kill off a seasoned pilot in a single kamikaze mission. The experts were instead tasked with escorting the kamikazes to the enemy fleet and also with defending the skies over the mainland. But it was obvious in the final days of the war that we would be defeated. The mood was ‘all one hundred million fighting to the death’ and ‘all planes be kamikazes,’ so I guess even a veteran pilot like Miyabe was ordered to mount a ‘special attack’ as well.”

For the first time I was able to understand, if only a little, the chagrin my grandfather must have felt. Forced to fight continuously from the Sino-Japanese war, then used and thrown away as a kamikaze. That must have been infuriating for someone who’d wanted so badly to return home alive.

“Please tell me one more thing, if you can,” I said. “Did my grandfather say that he loved my grandmother?”

Ito got a faraway look in his eyes. “He never said, ‘I love her.’ Our generation didn’t use the word. Miyabe was the same. What he said was that for his wife’s sake, he didn’t want to die.”

I nodded.

Ito concluded, “For our generation, that’s the same thing as saying, ‘I love her.’”

“What a nice surprise!”

Those were my sister’s first words on the phone. It was the day after I’d sent over the voice recorder containing Ito’s story.

“I listened to the whole thing in one sitting.”

She sounded somewhat excited. She was pleased to learn that our grandfather was a skilled pilot, but even more moved to hear that he had loved our grandmother. After briefly expressing her impressions, she asked if I was free that night and invited me to dinner with someone from the newspaper she was working with.

“I told him about our research, he’s very interested and wants to do dinner with us.”

Since I didn’t have anything in particular planned for the evening, I agreed.

I arrived at the hotel in Akasaka where we were to meet up and found Keiko alone. The newspaper guy had gotten tied up with a last-minute assignment and was running a little late. We decided to go on ahead to the restaurant and eat while we waited.

“Grandma was loved by her first husband,” Keiko said with feeling after we’d placed our orders.

“I wonder how she felt about him.”

Keiko thought for a moment. “She really loved Grandpa. I’d never have imagined her loving someone else before him.”

I nodded.