Naoki Hyakuta - The Eternal Zero

Tears were running down his face. “Pulling off a ramming attack from a nose-dive requires skill. The carrier-based bomber pilots who fought at Pearl Harbor might be able to pull it off, but these young kids can’t hack it. You have to dive at a very steep angle in order to avoid their anti-aircraft guns. If you go in at a low angle, you’ll get pummeled by them. But if your angle is too steep, you’ll end up going too fast, which makes your plane drift. You can do your best to counteract this, but at such high speeds the flaps become awfully heavy, and the vertical rudder is much less efficient. It’s not easy to change your angle or direction immediately before you slam into the target. In most cases, you just crash into the sea.”

Ensign Miyabe sounded as though he were speaking to an aviation student. He was clearly drunk. That was the first time I had seen him in such a state.

He suddenly grabbed the bottle of sake and flung it towards the runway. The bottle glinted in the moonlight as it arced its way through the air, then smashed into the pavement and splintered into pieces.

“Today, I watched as six medium bombers all got shot down. I couldn’t do a damn thing,” he said.

Then he howled. It made me tremble.

“Among the Ohka pilots was a student of mine from Tsukuba. Before we departed, he looked at me and said, ‘It’s a real comfort to know you’ll be escorting us, sir.’ But right before my eyes, the Type 1 that was carrying him went up in flames and fell away. The crew of the bomber saluted me as they fell,” Ensign Miyabe said, glaring at me. “I couldn’t save a single one of those planes.” His voice was anguished. “Not a damn one!”

“I don’t think it could have been helped, sir.”

“You don’t think?!” he shouted. “Do you have any idea how many men died? It’s the duty of the guard contingent to protect the special attack planes, even if it means sacrificing yourself. Yet I let all of them die.” Ensign Miyabe gripped his knees tightly and dropped his head. His shoulders were trembling.

I didn’t know what words to offer him. I could sense that he was blaming himself and getting lost in a black despair.

“My life rests on all of their sacrifices.”

“With all due respect, sir, I don’t think that’s true.”

“Yes, it is. I only survived because they died.”

Upon hearing this, I realized just how tormented his heart was. He was all too kind for his own good.

Ensign Miyabe then got up and started walking on unsteady feet towards the barracks. I couldn’t even call after him.

In the latter half of the Battle of Okinawa, Ensign Miyabe had clearly changed. He let stubble form along his jawline, and his eyes gave off a strange, dazzling light. He had always been tall and slender, but he grew even thinner. His face was haggard, his features altogether transformed. And he had stopped smiling.

It was as if each sortie as a fighter escort for kamikazes chipped away at his life force.

One early afternoon, seeing him standing on the runway, I felt a shiver run down my spine. As I observed his image wavering there in the hot air reflecting off the runway, it was as though he wasn’t of this world anymore. He already seemed to have one foot on that distant shore.

Even after Okinawa was captured by the Americans, kamikaze missions were carried out intermittently.

Soon, however, enemy planes taking off from Okinawa began to conduct near-daily raids. Most of the aircraft and personnel from Kanoya and other bases around southern Kyushu were transferred to northern Kyushu. Kanoya was then only used as a launching pad for kamikaze missions. I remained at Kanoya.

I began to realize that Japan was about to lose. August saw new types of bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and there was a looming sense of despair that Japan itself would perish.

After the call came down in the latter days of the Battle of Okinawa for all planes to kamikaze, HQ began issuing kamikaze orders as normal attacks. In addition to the student reservists and boy pilots, seasoned aviators from the Preparatory Program and even the Naval Academy were commanded one after another to sortie as kamikazes. Anyone who refused would of course be charged with insubordination.

By that time, however, many pilots were forced to turn around after encountering engine trouble. I’d also heard that more than a few crashed into the ocean well before reaching the American fleet. And I witnessed some aircraft that fell into the sea almost immediately after taking off from Kanoya. No matter how diligent the mechanics were, nearly one out of every three aircraft was forced to return due to engine problems. On particularly bad days, nearly all the aircraft had to come back. Japan was rapidly running out of materials, fuel, and everything else.

It was under those dire circumstances that Ensign Miyabe was ordered to sortie as a kamikaze at last.

The morning of his mission, I went to say goodbye to him. Dawn had yet to break.

It was still dark out, which made it hard to tell who was who, but eventually I found him.

I wasn’t sure what exactly I should say. I finally managed to force out, “Good luck in battle, sir.”

Ensign Miyabe nodded, but it was hard to read his expression in the darkness.

After a while the engines were started and the pilots headed towards their planes. Then something strange happened.

Ensign Miyabe asked a reserve officer to switch planes with him. The ensign’s was a newer Zero Model 52, and the reserve’s an old Model 21. By that time, Model 21s were very rare, and that particular one had probably been chucked away at some base to be patched up only now and brought to Kanoya. I was seeing one for the first time.

Ensign Miyabe wanted to fly the antique. He said he wanted to fly the same model of aircraft he’d piloted at Rabaul. A Model 21 couldn’t hold a candle to a Model 52 in terms of performance. The Model 52 had far greater horsepower and boasted a higher speed. The Model 21 may have been a more agile dogfighter, but that was irrelevant on a kamikaze mission. Even I knew it would be better to have a plane with greater horsepower and more speed.

The reserve officer that Ensign Miyabe had addressed was quite aware of these things as well, so he refused to exchange planes.

“Ensign Miyabe, you should take the Model 52, sir. You are far more skilled than I. A good pilot deserves a good aircraft,” the reserve declared.

“Understood,” the ensign said, returning to his own aircraft. But moments later he came back and repeated his request.

“My skills are top notch. I’ll be just fine in a Model 21,” he said loudly enough to be heard over the roar of the engines.

I couldn’t believe my own ears upon hearing this. It just didn’t seem like something he would ever say. I had never before heard him brag about his own skills like that. No, that was most certainly not the sort of man he was.

Maybe even someone like Ensign Miyabe wanted to strut a little in his final moments, I wondered then. Or maybe he was insisting on piloting the Model 21 out of stubbornness, out of anger towards the Navy for ordering a brilliant pilot like himself to kamikaze. Perhaps he thought, Fine, I’ll go, but I’ll take an old Model 21.

Or maybe what he said was the plain truth: his nostalgia for the good old Model 21 had won out.

The Zero came to be regarded as a symbol of the Imperial Navy. At the start of the war, she was a peerless fighter. But later on, since they hadn’t developed aircraft that could succeed her, the Zero continued to fight on the front lines. The famed warhorse that had once soared across the heavens had grown old and useless. In the first two years after its debut, the Model 21 wreaked havoc across the Chinese mainland and the Pacific, weaving the legend of the Zero’s invincibility. Perhaps upon seeing it again Ensign Miyabe felt like he had been reunited with an old war buddy.