Burial in the Clouds

June 3 (Continued from Yoshino’s diary)

Flying is becoming the be-all and end-all of our lives.

Each of us has already received an air log and a flight record. Outfitted with an oil-stained flying suit, aviation cap, half boots, a pair of goggles, and a life jacket, every last one of us is, to all appearances, an imposing “warbird” of the Imperial Navy.

The schedule is exacting. Reveille is at 0530, and we assemble within two minutes after that. Seconds count if you must fold your blanket neatly on your bunk, tie your shoelaces tightly, and line up, all in two minutes flat. We are constantly on the run. Once I saw a newsreel about young trainee pilots. Watching them dash like madmen from one task to another, I thought the scene simply had to have been staged. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We are told that pilots must always keep a clear head. Should so much as a wisp of a cloud pass through a pilot’s mind, he will inevitably lose control of his plane. They say pilots with fiancees back home have more accidents.

We live on a kind of tangent with death. We have to shout at the top of our lungs whenever we give account of ourselves, and if we let our guard down just a bit, we draw a storm of slaps before we cause an accident. The 13th Class of student reserves, now already commissioned, has stayed on as assistant division officers for the sea-plane units. They are a rough, bloodthirsty lot, and stick it to us the second they find us derelict. “Hold it right there, student of the 14th Class!” they will say, and over they come at a clip with a beating to complement the scolding. “Do you want to disgrace the Student Reserve Corps?!”

We were separated into boarding groups. I was assigned to group ten and took my first orientation flight today with Instructor Yamaguchi. The command to “Commence!” came at 1045, and off I sprinted to the aircraft. I thought I acted with composure and celerity, but obviously I lost my calm, since it wasn’t until we were up in the air that I realized I wasn’t wearing gloves. We flew at an altitude of 200 meters. That’s about eight times the height of the Marubutsu Department Store in front of Shichijo Station, but it didn’t feel particularly high, it just felt as if my body were suspended in air. There was something gratifying about the experience, making me wish very much to congratulate myself. Ahead of us was Instructor Ejiri’s plane, floating along with Sakai aboard. I was pretty much disoriented as to our bearings, but as I steadied myself and took a close look, I noticed our position gradually shifting against the green background of the mountains. Beneath us ran streams. A grid lay over the land, with its roadways and airplane hangars, and that clear geometric pattern was dotted with men who looked like black beans. The barley in that lower world is ripe for harvest. We soon reached the turning point and changed direction, flying out over the sea, where I saw the islands of Amakusa, and their shorelines. The islands are exquisite, hemmed in by thin white ribbons of surf. The wide expanse of blue water swelled out, and the horizon seemed to recede as we moved on.

It was clear and sunny all day today. I felt not the slightest anxiety from takeoff to landing. It was exhilarating. We cut into the wind as we descended, and all of a sudden, each solitary blade of grass came into clear view, as when a camera snaps into focus. Next I saw the grass pressed down by the wind, and in a split second my feet were on the ground. Who would believe that just five or ten meters of lovely green grass during a landing, or a variation of just three to five degrees in inclination, can mark the difference between life and death?

I felt fairly well accustomed to flying my second and third times up, but during the third flight the wind shifted abruptly from east to west, somewhere around the fourth turning point, just before we started our descent. Without warning I lurched 180 degrees into a vertical turn. Before I knew it, the sky and the earth were at my sides and the horizon slipped at a right angle before my eyes. I didn’t know up from down or right from left. A thrill of horror shot through me, but of course we landed safely all the same. I flew three times, for a total of twenty-two minutes in the air. This duration is recorded in a log, and once our accumulated flight time reaches three or four hundred hours, we should be full-fledged pilots, capable of manipulating the plane as if it were an extension of the body.

Attaining for the first time a bird’s-eye view of the sea, and of the mountains of southern Kyushu, I know what Nagata-no-Okimi felt when he sang (in volume three of the Manyoshu),

Izumi is some two and a half hours by express train from Kagoshima, via Ijuin, Sendai, and Akune, and it is a place of utter scenic beauty. Izumi looks across the Shiranui Sea to Amakusa, and the Koshiki-jima Islands lie off to the southwest. Beyond the sprawling airstrip of green grass you can see the silvery waves, even when you are standing on the ground. A lark has built a nest in the grass, and it sings as it flies, soaring as high as the planes.

Discipline is severe, the flying suits are stifling, and it’s no easy trick to sprint with the contents of your leg pockets kicking around. But we are all in high spirits. I clean forgot my birthday on May 30. I didn’t notice the day had passed until I was ordered to fill out a statement giving my personal history and background last night, and I’m actually pleased about this. I am twenty-four years old now.

The Hagakure, a book on bushido, says, “To conquer your enemy, first conquer your friends. To conquer your friends, first conquer yourself To conquer yourself, first conquer your body with your mind.” Whenever I caught even the slightest cold, I used to burrow under the covers, giving myself up to sloth, and I haven’t entirely vanquished the more indolent aspects of my character. But I really must rid myself of them soon, if I am ever to die a worthwhile death for my country, or if I am to discipline myself into maturity as a pilot in time.

June 11

Excursion from 0800. Generally, Kyushu is very well supplied, and our outings will be far more enjoyable than those we made in Tsuchiura. I wish mother could try one of the steamed yam-paste buns they make at the Brotherhood of Enlisted Men.

I had five bowls of sweet shiruko, drank four glasses of Calpis, and ate a parcel of snacks, a bowl of udon, and ten manju with yam-paste. Then I met Fujikura and Sakai, as we had earlier arranged, and walked with them from the Brotherhood out to Komenotsu, breaking a sweat under the early summer sun. Along the way we saw fields of ripe barley, the sprightly children of Kyushu, all tanned and barefoot, and then the bright sea beyond.

They say Komenotsu used to prosper as the point of export for rice produced all over these plains, but now it is a little fishing port renowned for its fine tiger prawns. We decided to leave the prawns for a later date and catch a train to Minamata. I heard that to the east of Komenotsu lies the site of the barrier of Noma, which runs along the northern border of the old Satsuma Clan, but we decided to save that for another day, too. Incidentally, as we walked from Izumi to Komenotsu, Fujikura started in with his constant complaint, claiming that Sakai and I had changed, and disagreeably, too.

“You say Japan will rally once we toe the line,” Fujikura said. “You say you will die honorably. Is this really, honestly, what you both think?” Who wouldn’t feel antagonized when challenged like this? So we fell to arguing. Essentially, all Fujikura wants to convey is his general opposition to the war, or at any rate his extremely pessimistic outlook as to its progress. He maintains that there is no good reason why we, having been drawn into this conflict through no choice of our own, should believe we must die for our country. His attitude also seems rather irresponsible and apathetic, and he basically says that nothing good will happen to Japan anyway, whether we die honorably or not.

“You despise fanaticism. You hate the foolish opportunism of all the scholars,” Fujikura continued. “But you fail to recognize that you are losing your own minds.” He does go on and is devious in the way he expresses his estimable opinions, though, and he didn’t used to be like this. Fujikura, too, may be losing his mind.

“But we can carry the war through,” I argued, “precisely because we are all just a little bit mad. That’s what the circumstances require.” Fujikura shot me a contemptuous look, but what does he believe we ought to do? This conversation makes me want to know, for once and for all, just how he thinks we should live—just how he thinks we should conduct ourselves, given our present situation.

“If you can figure out a way to save your own life,” he says, “then you can make it through. Don’t lose your head. Hold to your beliefs, and if there really is no way out of this mess, at least never give up your consciousness and your pride. When I say ‘consciousness,’ I have something rather different in mind from what you mean by the word.” I understand that Fujikura can really let loose only when he is alone with the three of us. We mustn’t cut him off, only to end up completely at odds with one another. But still, I feel a little angry.

We arrived in Minamata at around eleven o’clock, having managed to make our peace again on the train. A little up the slope near the station, along the Kagoshima Main Line, we spotted what appeared to be the old house of an illustrious family. Attached to it was a tranquil, luxuriant garden, with a mountain standing off to the back. We were intrigued, and after talking it over a bit, we decided to ask the family to let us see the house, knowing well how rude we were being.

“We are from the naval air station in Izumi,” we said, introducing ourselves. “And we were wondering—that is, if it’s no inconvenience to you—if we might enjoy your garden while we take a rest.” And they graciously ushered us in.

We found ourselves treated to a subtle infusion of powdered tea, which we rarely have a chance to drink, along with some cakes from Kagoshima called harukoma. The head of this household is a Mr. Nobunori Fukai. The family served the lords of Minamata Castle for generations. Mr. and Mrs. Fukai appear to be in their fifties, and they have a gentle, pleasant daughter, probably a few years younger than we are. She made the tea for us. There was a discreet garden pond among the bushes, and I could hear water dripping off the rocks. Deutzias were flowering. We grew silent for some reason, but we were fully gratified at heart. Personally, I have never been much interested in the gardens at Dai-sen-in or at Ryoan-ji Temple, and I certainly don’t mean to compare the Fukais’ garden with those. But it has been a very long time since I knew such serenity, and in such a peaceful setting.

As noon approached, they offered us a few tidbits. We declined, not wishing to abuse their hospitality, but they insisted. And after that, it was “Bread is better than birdsong,” as they say. (I can’t deny that we had more or less anticipated this.) Gratefully we enjoyed locally brewed sake, bonito sashimi garnished with ginger, sea urchin from Shimonoseki, and Suizenji seaweed soup, all the while telling the Fukais of our present circumstances and of our backgrounds. The Fukais have a son, a graduate of Keio University, who serves as a technical lieutenant in an army unit at Tianjin. They said fate brought us together and expressed the hope that we would visit whenever we were given an outing, treating their home as our own. We took our leave at around one thirty, in high spirits—in fact, feeling blessed.

However, the meal the Fukais served was a bit too elegant to fill our stomachs, and when we returned to Izumi we ate a plate of fried rice with chicken, two bowls of oyako-donburi, a plate of sushi, and some scalloped noodles, and finally satisfied ourselves. As might be expected, I left more than half of my dinner at the base untouched. But I am becoming voracious again these days.

June 15

American troops have started landing on Saipan. I heard that the combined fleet hoisted a “Z” flag and sailed in with all its remaining vessels. They haven’t announced any military results yet.

We had our first takeoff and landing exercises. It was a dual flight and we all scrambled to get the good voice tubes. Wind direction: North. Wind velocity: Beaufort No. 7. I flew for thirty minutes.

The special course today was glider training. In bursts of fifty paces, done on the double, we hauled a secondary glider out to the end of the airfield. In the midst of the exercise, G.’s towline broke, injuring him slightly and snapping his watch band. The watch flew off into the air, and we searched for it after the order to cease the exercise was issued. It was a pleasure to grope about in the grass for the lost watch, teasing one another. “It’s a treasure hunt at our seaside school,” someone said. “Whoever finds the watch, he’ll get G.’s milk tomorrow.”

The day was long, and we cast deep shadows across the grass. I found myself more curious about the lark eggs nestled out here somewhere than about G.’s watch. I lay down flat so as to spot the bird when it alighted, and then made a search. After a few tries, I found the nest: three tiny eggs, gray-colored and oval-shaped, neatly arranged. The lark chattered on anxiously from a distance. M. told me that if a person touches its eggs, a bird will refuse to sit on them, so I gave it up, leaving the nest and my heart behind.

“Here it is!” someone shouted. The works of the watch were still intact and with a new glass cover it will be perfectly usable. We were all set to return to the barracks when Wakatsuki cried out abruptly, eyes skyward, “What the hell?!” We all looked up, and beheld an aircraft engaged in aerobatic exercises. A man had crawled out on its wing.

“Ack!” we gasped, as the body pulled away from the plane, plummeting, as if sucked down, over beyond the field headquarters, from an altitude of 800 meters. The man died instantly. It looks like a suicide. The plane went into a spin and crashed in a barley field. It wasn’t long before his identity was disclosed: Senior Aviation Petty Officer D., an instructor attached to the 7th Division. I couldn’t fathom it. Why, at such a crucial time, would he kill himself, wasting his valuable skills?

I asked Instructor Yamaguchi about it when he stopped by the barracks after dinner. “It was probably a woman,” he replied matter-of-factly. But as to that, my mind wasn’t settled, and in the evening I got poor marks during signal-communication drills. The transmission speed is fifty-five letters per minute. From the OD’s room, the instructor sent in all manner of playful messages.

“Haveyoufoundlarkeggs?”

"Yesterdayastudentsnuckintothekitchentocabbagesugar Iknowwhodiditbutwon’ttelltheseniorofficersDestroythismessag ewhenyougetit." (Those who got it laughed.)

“Raiseyourhandifyougetthefollowingabbreviationsn.”

“hoshiyohoshi.” (This means “from gunner to gunner.”)

“kayotsushi.” (“from captain to signaler.”)

“tototototo.” (“make an all-out charge”—a signal we will doubtless use some day.)

They made the rounds at 2130. Senior Aviation Petty Officer D.’s suicide left me dismayed.

June 28

In the morning, the chief flight officer gave us a lesson on torpedo tactics in the drill hall. But whatever the topic (navigation, torpedoes, etc.) it is all basically a review of what we learned at Tsuchiura. This officer doesn’t appear to be comfortable in the classroom anyway, and his talk grew livelier when he turned to the military situation on Saipan.

The newspapers all say, “Our women bravely rise up! Reenactment of the Mongolian Invasions at Iki Island!” But it seems the hostile troops have already seized a good portion of the island. Should Saipan fall, all the bases north of the South Sea Islands, such as those on Tinian, Iwo-jima, Guam, and Truk, will likely be useless, and the enemy will advance full clip toward the Philippines and mainland Japan. We have yielded control of the skies, and the enemy task force cruises freely around the Marianas. I hear that the combined fleet lost three of its jewels—the aircraft carriers Taiho, Shokaku, and Hiyo—and that it has already left the theater of operations, fleeing to a point not so very far from where we sit behind the scenes. The enemy fleet has emerged more or less unscathed, they say. It’s distressing to think that this operation degenerated into yet another lost battle. Japan must retain some kind of confidence in her future success, but it’s all so mortifying. I cant bear to sit on my hands back here. Sometimes I fear we might not complete our training in time. But even as I say this, the thought steals into my mind that I might actually return home alive. I banish this idea as best I can, partly because we are forbidden to entertain it, but mostly because I know I lose my edge in the cockpit if I ever allow it to take root, and this would be dangerous. There is no denying that the grim complexion of the war unsettles me, though. I am also, to some degree, affected by Fujikura’s opinions.

Flight training this afternoon, as the sky cleared up. They say the better trainees be allowed to fly solo before long. I guess I’m making some sort of progress, but I had a stomach problem for three days, coinciding more or less with the naval battle in the Marianas. I brought up three large basins of vomit, so exhausting myself that I had to take a few days off, and thus I’ve fallen behind. I feel very questionable.

Today I was assigned the duty of recording secretary. I attended the division officer at field headquarters, clipboard in hand, and timed each flight from takeoff to landing.

“Aircraft #X taking off.”

“The wind has shifted.”

“Aircraft #Y, you are not clear for takeoff.”

“‘Gyro’ requests permission to land.”

“‘Gyro’ may land.”

‘“Deck’ will now land.”

On and on it went. It was quite nerve-wracking.

Wakatsuki suffered an accident. His plane (#4) flipped when its landing gear hung up on an obstruction during landing, and he ground to a halt upside down. I held my breath. We wear seatbelts and shoulder straps to bind us into the airplane, but in due course Wakatsuki untangled himself and emerged unperturbed with the instructor. God bless the Red Dragonfly. Had it been a real warplane, they would have both been goners. The Red Dragonflies are very stable. If we ever lose control in the air, they tell us, we should simply let go of the stick, and the plane will right itself naturally. Wakatsuki had a slight limp. But nevertheless he managed to sprint to the command tent and shout out a report, his face flushed, “Aircraft #4, Cadet Wakatsuki, reporting in from the third flight! The landing gear was damaged, and the propeller was completely destroyed. There is no other problem."

The division officer motioned Wakatsuki forward until they stood face to face, then he gave him a whack. “Idiot! You sound like you’re proud! You damaged the undercarriage. You wrecked the propeller. And there is no other problem?”

Relieved of my recording duty, I climbed into aircraft #7 for her eighth flight of the day. After taking off, I penetrated the clouds at an altitude of 300 meters. I call them clouds, but they were wispy, more like mist really. They slipped by at tremendous speed. The airfield vanished and then reappeared through the rifts. The island mountains of Amakusa were draped in clouds. The scene brought back a memory of a trip to Unzen I once made with my parents during the rainy season, when our bus climbed up through the mist.

All in all, the most difficult thing is to complete a pull out at five meters as you come in to land. Unlike army pilots, navy fliers must execute a pullout-and-stall at a height of five meters in order to drop the tail of the plane for a three-point landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier. No matter how many times I try, I wind up touching down front-wheel first. I need more experience if I am ever to get the hang of it.

Flight operations exhaust me. I crave for books during our evening study sessions. Strange to say, though, these days I don’t ever feel like taking up the Manyoshu. Stray poems from it come to mind during breaks between lectures and flight training, but I feel no inclination to open up the book and read. Instead, I want to read someone who can school a young fighter on matters of real consequence, firmly but responsibly, and in light of our actual situation. But such books are few and far between. Otherwise, I prefer to read something short and sweet, say, the fairy tales of Andersen, or the stories of Chekhov. Some men attain self-forgetfulness through the pleasures of the table, but only one thing really eases my mind: reading a great book that admits me to a wonderfully secure world. I write home for a few.

July 8

Yesterday was the night of the Star Festival. We stood in ranks facing the moon and practiced issuing commands. The Milky Way was beautiful.

The Star Festival puts me in mind of the girls in the merchants’ district of Osaka. Dolled up in large-patterned red yukata and yellow waistbands, they sit outside on benches, fans in hand, and chat idly along in their regional accent.

“That’s not right, Yuki-chan. That’s just not fair.”

“Yeah, but my brother said it’s okay.”

The sweet colloquial rhythms of Osaka echoing in my ears, before my eyes a slip of silver paper inscribed with the words “Star Festival,” the glow of sparklers…. But soon enough we are placed on Defense Condition 1. No time to fantasize about girls in yukata. It would appear that better than a dozen B-29s flew in from the direction of Chengdu, China, for a midnight raid on northern and western Kyushu. Yahata, Sasebo, and other cities all suffered damage.

Today is Imperial Rescript Day. The Sunday schedule was unexpectedly applied, and we were granted liberty. We took the train to Minamata and headed straight for the Fukais. Mr. Fukai was in Kumamoto today. The daughter, Fukiko, helped her mother prepare a meal for us, wearing pants made from a coarse, splash-patterned fabric. I felt guilty barging in unannounced. But what might otherwise have been a plain-looking pair of work pants looked fetching on Fukiko. The subdued light of the Fukais’ house imparted a grace to her fair face and limbs, and I have never known a girl with such elegant nails. Mrs. Fukai kept us company for the most part, while Fukiko, to our disappointment, tended to disappear into the kitchen, not that any of us (I assume) was thinking of her in any special way. We aren’t allowed to indulge such thoughts. Fukiko is quiet by nature, but she laughed with amusement when we related the story of Wakatsuki emerging from his plane so free of care after landing it upside down.

I learned for the first time that Tokutomi Roka was from Minamata. The Fukais have a number of old books of essays by local literary figures, and also a volume called the Ashikita County Chronicle, which compiles folk songs, ballads, and legends.

I found a few interesting hulling songs: “Long may my old man live, until the fire bell at the temple rots.” “Divert yourself with song, instead of crying about your work.” And a horse driver’s chant: “If you sing as you please, the trees and reeds will nod, and the river stop to listen.”

I suggested that we visit the Fukais whenever we are granted an outing, and that each time we copy out a few of these old folk poems, with a view toward making a notebook.

“Sure. Sounds interesting. Let’s do it,” Sakai agreed.

Fujikura, however, was displeased. “This isn’t a Japanese Lit class,” he said. “Stop your masturbatory trifling, and don’t be so mawkish.” He seems to be in the habit of objecting on principle to whatever it is we propose.

For dessert we were served a sweet soup of parched barley flour with dumplings. I stirred the barley flour into the boiling water and raised the bowl to my mouth, savoring its clean bucolic flavor, its gentle aroma and warmth. It was pure delight.

We returned to base at 1630. Tonight we learned that the final charge was in progress on Saipan.

July 18

First solo flight today. Intense heat, glaring sun, blue sky, and cumulonimbus clouds.

The men on Saipan died honorably, I heard. In the early morning of July 7, they launched their final all-out assault. Some managed to steer in close to Mt. Tapotchau, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy, but all are believed to have met their heroic deaths no later than the 16th. Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, task force leader at the Battle of Hawaii, was also killed in action.

“Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die.” We may fall, or we may kick in hard, but we must do it all without question, and that is our life.

I scarcely have time even to write this.

July 31

I was permitted to fly solo only the other day, and now I am already training in aerobatics.

The summer sea and clouds are exceptionally beautiful. From an altitude of 1200 meters, I made a nosedive toward a fishing boat, a solitary dot on the sea. I made a loop and executed a hammer-head stall and a vertical turn. Up in the sky the air is cool and pleasant, and aerobatic flying is a thrill, but it seems that the brain works far less efficiently at high altitude. Besides, I feel lousy all day after a flight, and my head grows heavy, as if it were under pressure.

Still, since we began aerobatics and formation flight training, I have noticed on the faces of my comrades the serene expression of men who act without worry about the outcome, as well as a few menacing looks. Flying demands the most rigorous attention, a kind of total effort. At all other times, there is just no use thinking about anything. My body perpetually craves watermelon, cold drinks, and the like.

They conducted a survey as to which type of aircraft we wish to fly. I listed carrier-based attack bombers for my first choice, land-based attack bombers for my second. In short, I have decided to fly hugging a torpedo to my belly. After all, if we don’t do it, nobody will. Enemy troops have landed on Guam, and they have also reached Palau. Dalian reportedly suffered an air raid last night. The 1st Division and the 8th Division start night-flight training tomorrow. In fact, night-flight training is the ultimate course. We have come a long way in short order. Prepare for death with composure.

A letter from father arrived today, together with Mokichi Saito’s Winter Clouds and the Iwanami paperback of Chekhov’s stories. They still know nothing of my brother Bunkichi’s whereabouts, and, as news comes in of suicidal charges made on one island after another, they worry, ominously.

When I open Winter Clouds, the poems about battles, and about Yamato, naturally seize my heart. However, the poems collected here date from 1937 to 1939, which means Saito’s sentiment is often rather distant from ours, even if he does speak of war.

Given the present complexion of the war, I could never express such wholehearted “felicitations.” I will copy down a few other poems that caught my eye.

Saito wrote a couple of poems celebrating the wedding of Yoshiko Nakamura (probably the daughter of the late Kenkichi Nakamura).

In all likelihood I will die before ever having this experience.

I haven’t been able to finish the book yet, but for the first time in a long while, I actually enjoyed reading poetry.

August 6

Excursion today. We ventured in a new direction, heading out to Akune. The hot springs there are very salty, as the water flows across a bed of halite before gushing out. My body felt sticky. Still, we bathed after taking a rest, and bathed yet again after lunch, making the most of it. The Chinese poet Bai Juyi writes, “The smooth hot spring water laved her creamy skin.” In our case, it just wrung all the sweat from our bodies. But to men living in such times, to men situated as we are, a hot spring welling up so inexhaustibly, so mysteriously, by day and by night, seems a natural benediction.

It’s sweltering. Not a drop of rain for the last ten days or so. I saw a rice field from the train, cracked by the sun. At the inn, the greenness of the garden was oppressive, and large brown cicadas chirred, intensifying the heat. The fried tiger prawns were delicious, and I ended up ordering three helpings. The watermelon was ripe and sweet. There was only one fly in the ointment: The beer wasn’t cold enough, probably due to the shortage of ice.

We checked the train schedule only to discover that we hadn’t time to go to Minamata today, though the Fukais might well have expected us, so we headed straight back to the base. Oleander bloomed here and there (sumac and oleander are ubiquitous in these parts). Oleander flowers are lovely, but a stranger on the train told us that the tree is toxic. During the Seinan War, the government soldiers ate lunch using oleander twigs for chopsticks, and many were poisoned. We also learned that this region is renowned as the migratory home of cranes. Flocks of hooded cranes fly in from Siberia every winter.

When we returned, two postcards awaited me, one from Professor E., the other from Kashima. To my surprise, Kashima has been in Kyushu since last month. The address read: “Yoshihiko Kashima, 120th Outfit, Provisional Torpedo Boat Training Camp, Kawatana-machi, Nagasaki Prefecture.” This is a special camp where men train in high-speed torpedo boats, lightweight crafts made of plywood and fitted out with aircraft engines. Their purpose is to launch close-quarter torpedo attacks on enemy warships.

“You guys come in from the air,” Kashima wrote, “I will come in on the water, and A. will creep in over the earth. Let’s keep up the work.” “A.” is A.K. of Oriental History, and a high school classmate of Kashima. Apparently he has been sent to Naval Gunnery School at Tateyama. “I don’t know which way Izumi is,” Kashima continued, and then he adapted a poem from the Manyoshu: “‘If I forget how you look / I shall call you to mind / When I look at the clouds / That cover the plain and rise / Up to the mountaintop.’ Har har.” Well, he could look Izumi up on a map.

Professor E. is serving fifteen-day stints at Toyokawa Naval Arsenal in Aichi Prefecture, leading students from the faculties of Law, Letters, and Economics. Since the emergency Student Mobilization Order was issued, academic work has been virtually suspended at the university.

“I have much to say about my experience in Toyokawa,” the professor writes. “I just can’t say it on a postcard.” I can imagine the general situation.

August 23

Sunny today. The cool rush of the night air tells me that autumn is approaching, and in this hint of a changing season I also feel the creeping shadow of death. From the window of the barracks, I see the clear sickle of the crescent moon.

For some time now I have neglected to keep my diary. When we were in Tsuchiura, the division officer gave us a bit of advice: “You are free to keep a diary,” he said, “but its contents may be private, and since navy fliers must rely on others to see to their personal effects if they are killed, it is best, so far as you can manage it, never to write anything that might tarnish your name after death.” At the time, this gave me a little start, but lately I don’t much care whether or not my name is tarnished after I die. I don’t say this with any special conviction, as if I had resolved to take my own path and leave it to survivors to judge my life. On the contrary, I’m probably just backsliding. Well, in a word, I just don’t give a damn.

As my mind grew passive, keeping a diary came to seem a pathetic exercise in literary masturbation, the sole outlet of my posthumous vanity. After all, I’m conscious of my readers as I compose. I play the scholar in front of my navy instructors and comrades, and I play the manly naval aviation student reserve officer in front of my university professors and parents, but really it’s all nothing except lies rolled up in grumbles. These thoughts occupied me, and I didn’t have the heart to take up a pen. In fact, I have eighty seven hundred sixty hours left, if I’m to live out another year, and I don’t really see the point in setting aside some portion of my limited time in order to write this tripe. And yet when I abandoned what had become a custom with me—writing in my diary during our nightly study sessions—I was overcome with the feeling that something was missing, just as you might feel the need to put something in your mouth after quitting smoking. So today I am inclined to start writing again, and if it’s masturbation, then so be it.

I might be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Sometimes I feel utterly lost. I know nothing about keeping a diary, nothing about the war, nothing about life, nothing about death, nothing about scholarship either. I’m just a vacillator. What on earth is there in me that can be “tarnished” after I am gone? I notched up my petty successes, with self-satisfaction, from junior high to high school, from high school to university, and I left the university to become a pilot in the Navy Air Corps, fancying myself as “honorably” singled out. I can’t resist the feeling that I am being stripped bare, so that I might see what my life really amounts to in the end. Not that I can handle an airplane better than anyone else, or that I can face my death with resolution. At the end of the day, I suppose, I simply have no core. I can’t even compose a single satisfactory tanka, even under such uniquely tumultuous circumstances as these.

To my vexation, by and large I am in accord with what I am told, but none of it ever catches fire inside me. I can only conclude that I don’t have what it takes, that I’m not numbered among those who burn with zeal. I am instructed to purify my mind of worldly thoughts, but what will become of me if I struggle, again and again, to detach myself and still fail, if I am committed utterly to the task and still cannot emancipate myself from what entangles me? Fortunately, during flight my brain functions only at about one-third of its natural capacity. It would be disastrous if thoughts like these swept over me in the cockpit. When, two months back, Senior Aviation Petty Officer D. leapt from the wing of his plane to his death, Instructor Yamaguchi chalked it up to a woman, and the explanation half convinced me. But now I wonder if his case might not have been so simple. Should my skill ever reach such a level as to free my mind up to wander while I fly, I can well imagine that my hand may, of its own accord, shove the control stick forward, sending the plane into a nosedive. I would kill myself, hardly even aware that I was to die. This is certainly among the possibilities, and if it should happen, the men will cremate my body, hold a wake by my ashes, and then forget about me as they return to their affairs, just as we all did when Senior Aviation Petty Officer D. perished. These men are strong; they possess the tenacity of an insect.

What’s more, I believe that I am unduly influenced by Fujikura, even as I oppose him. My nervous breakdown might well be called “Fujikura’s neurasthenia.” When, on occasion, I find myself in good spirits, possessed of a forthright warrior’s disposition, Fujikura’s voice inevitably intrudes upon me. Of course, he sometimes does come and talk to me in person, but for the most part, it is his words—what he has said and is likely to say—that haunt me, shattering my resolve.

“‘A forthright warrior’s disposition’? What does that mean?”

“Doesn’t it ever occur to you to doubt a war that militarists, capitalists, and politicians started on a gamble? Do you really consider it an honor to sacrifice your life in such a war?”

“No, you don’t really believe it. You’re just obsessed with the notion and too scared to question it.”

“Why don’t you take a good hard look, a patient look, at your innermost self, and at the condition of the war?”

And I offer my weak reply, closing my eyes. “Yes, I understand. I understand what you’re saying.”

Then an instructor’s voice displaces Fujikura’s. “What’s eating you, Cadet Yoshino?” And not one of those bitter old maids who hang on in the training units, but my favorite instructor, the gentle, plain-spoken, clear-eyed chief flight officer whom we all call “the long-nosed goblin of Kurama.” “You look depressed,” he says. “Open your eyes and examine the situation. Things have come to such a pass that no one can say the tragedy in Saipan won’t be repeated scene for scene on mainland Japan. If we don’t want to see our country destroyed, we have to pitch in hard. We have no alternative. I know it’s difficult, but you must follow me without qualms. You can’t grip the control stick while casting a backward glance.”

“I understand, sir,” I reply, snapping to attention in my daydream. Can there be such a spineless attack bomber pilot as I am, a man who understands a little of this and a little of that, a man who is half-assed in everything?

My energy drains away into fancies of an old hermit’s life (and here I am, a mere twenty-four years of age!), and then the reverie absorbs me utterly. . . . Alongside a mountain stream, deep in the hills and bathed by the sun, there stands a forlorn cottage. Bestowed with the blessings of birdsong and abundant fruit, and with a few books to read and a good country wifi to talk to, I will consign my feckless self to the vicissitudes of nature, like the grasses that grow silently and wither silently, locking all the old agitations away in my heart, and close my life in solitude and peace. . . . At other times I summon up as my ideal something rather more concrete. In this scenario, I’m pushing along a wheelbarrow of tomatoes on a farm of my own, or capering about with puppyish children at a district school, on some small island of terraced fields…. But then the whistle sounds beyond the deck, “Hoa-hi-hoa! Cease work in five minutes,” and I pull out of my stupor.

Speaking of Saipan, I heard the following tale from a PO in the mess hall. The POs there are generally a realistic, hedonistic lot, fat and flabby—not at all the “gallant” type. Anyhow, this officer said that on a small island off Guadalcanal two navy signalers, men who had been left behind all but dead, somehow managed to filch a canoe and make their escape. Open wounds festered on their legs, streaming with bloody pus, and they had nothing at all to eat. For several days they drifted with the tide, gnawing their leather belts. Finally they made shore on a strange island. Human voices were audible just beyond a cliff draped with grasses and tree branches. The men couldn’t tell whether the voices belonged to friend or to foe, but still they ventured to land. It turned out to be a Japanese army unit, and the two signalers were safely packed off to Saipan. From there, one of them was shipped back to Yokosuka, but the other, whose infection was not so severe, stayed on at Saipan, and when his health recovered, he was assigned to the island’s signal unit. On the fortieth day after his rescue the American troops started landing, and this signaler, aware now that he would not survive, despite having made such a harrowing escape, rapped out a message in plain language to all navy units as he went to his death: “Damn the Imperial Navy.

“It might be true, the PO said. I just don’t know how credible the story is.

We hear of three successive uprisings in Korea recently. Once I might have dismissed the rioters as a nuisance, but now I believe their actions may spring from a perfectly natural impulse. Japan talks about a lasting peace in East Asia, a peace on whose terms every nation can agree, but Japan has never said she will grant Korea her independence. What could be more reasonable than that Koreans should resent being asked to bow at shrines consecrated to the Japanese dead? No wonder they don’t share our concerns as to the outcome of the war, no wonder they resist conscription in a war that promises them no future. As for me, my fighting spirit burns when I recall the abuses that America, Britain, and all the other so-called “industrial” nations of the West have committed all over Asia for a hundred years, but I’ve rather indifferently tolerated our own nation’s actions in China and Korea. At the time of my birth, Korea was already our possession, and we have harbored no doubts about it, but apparently the question is not so simple. I understand why the Koreans believe they will be liberated should Japan lose this war, and if, capitalizing on Japan’s deteriorating military position, they take to the streets rather than be drafted before that day of liberation comes, I can understand that, too. Perhaps my weak heart sympathizes with a weak and oppressed people. I have no idea whether that is a good thing or a bad thing.

August 26

Insects sing constantly, and it’s quite cool, morning and evening. The tadpoles that once swarmed in the gutters at the barracks vanished before I noticed. My heart sinks deep, deep as it ever has. I received a severe reprimand from the division officer.

The fledgling sparrows, now barely able to fly, leap in flurries from the gutters to the eaves of the panoptic auditorium. The lecture on the science of war fades from view as I watch them, vacantly. Timidly the siblings launch desperately into flight. Nevertheless, they fly in order to live.

We are allowed considerable freedom now during solo flights, so I flew over Minamata the other day, where I could easily make out the Fukais’ place. The lines of the earthen wall enclosing it to the southwest looked lovely from the air. I dove twice in salutation. Neither Fukiko nor anybody else came out, though I flew so close to the ground that the roar of the plane shook the pine tree in the garden. It was a disappointment. In a field, children threw up their arms at me. I replied with a waggle of the wings and headed back. I wasn’t upbraided for any of this, as they didn’t find out about it, but today I flew out to sea and spotted a fleet of ships steaming along some twelve nautical miles south-southwest of Ushibuka, a town on the main island of Amakusa. The fleet consisted of an enormous battleship, escorted by two destroyers and two heavy cruisers. The ships dominated the seascape, leaving behind them five snowy wakes as they cruised over rough blue waters ruffled with whitecaps. Stirred by a tender pride, I set a course for the battleship, and, at an altitude 700 meters, whizzed by. No sooner had I passed over the ship, however, than her antiaircraft machine guns and high-angle canon opened up on me simultaneously, emitting sharp flashes of light. I was stunned and wheeled about in haste. At first I thought they mistook me for an enemy aircraft, but then I realized that they had in fact been firing blanks. I couldn’t figure out why they opened fire, though, and could only conclude that I had inadvertently served as a target for antiaircraft fire training. As soon as I landed at Izumi, I was called in by the division officer.

“Where in the hell did you fly!?” he thundered, glaring at me. The battleship had been none other than the Musashi, as it happened, and he had already received a dispatch from its LC: “At 1025 a training aircraft from your base overflew this ship without permission, turned, and headed back. I request that you attend to the matter.” I was fairly boiled in oil. I felt pathetic. This is precisely why you should never doze off during lectures on navy rules and regulations. I hadn’t known we are forbidden to pass over a fleet of ships without permission.

September 1

We conducted a mutual flight in formation.

I flew plane #2. Only the lead plane was piloted by an instructor. At one point I recklessly pulled in so close to him that my wing might easily have touched his. I held the position for several minutes. If we crash, I thought, then so be it. The lead plane would surely have gone down had we collided, as its tail assembly would have been damaged. We, however, would have likely survived, if it were just a matter of our plowing the propeller into the other plane. The crew in the lead plane was evidently anxious, as they glanced back at us constantly. But I didn’t expect a scolding, because our instructions had been to “follow with a vengeance.” Cowardly Sakai, in plane #3, fell off to the rear left, now and then, marring the formation. Perceiving this, the instructor lowered his altitude and banked left at a steep angle. As the umbrella formation suddenly inclined, Sakai, had he remained where he was, would have had no choice but to plunge into the sea. So he scrambled to catch up. It’s a brutal, unforgiving tactic.

All goes like clockwork if I position my plane by keeping my body exactly between the rising sun painted on the fuselage of the lead plane and its main wing joint. When I’m flying over the ocean in tight formation, my hands and feet work fluidly, as if without any effort, and it feels good. The landing went off flawlessly, and as I pulled on to the apron, the command came to cease and return to the hangars. We taxied our airplanes in, gunning the throttles.

An armada of Ginga bombers attached to the Todoroki Unit advanced to this air station today. I have seen the Ginga before, at Tsuchiura. A top-secret prototype of this land-based bomber had been in development for years under the name “Y20,” and I assume they finally managed to put it into mass production. Anyhow, I have never before seen a whole fleet of Gingas, and so close up, as well. The navy threw all its aeronautical science and technology into this plane. They say that the men who saw the first working prototype cried out in wonder at the sight of its elegant form. And it is indeed a refined, smart-looking aircraft. Its all-up weight is ten tons, which is heavier than the Type-1 land-based attack bombers, but in the air it is nimble.

The Todoroki crews took their lunch behind the array of Gingas, and, without so much as setting foot in the barracks, began training in the evening. They kept up their torpedo drills, and their navigation, communication, and dive-bombing drills, until about eleven o’clock at night. The roar was so deafening we could hardly hear what the duty officer said as he made his rounds. An ensign, from the 13th Student Reserves, strutted in with news of our advanced new aircraft—the carrier-based reconnaissance plane Saiun, the land-based patrol plane Tokai, the night fighter Gekko, and so on. All of which appears to have eased my nervous breakdown a little. As we listened, mightily impressed, this ensign of the 13th Student Reserves swelled with pride, carrying on for all the world as if he had himself built the Ginga, the Saiun, and everything else.

I heard from my mother. She said our figs are already ripe. That very day she had laid the first of them out in meals set for me and my brother Bunkichi, but where on earth is Bunkichi now? He might possibly have been killed on Saipan or some other such place, I vaguely thought.

September 8

Red Dragonflies sank down onto the vast sward of green grass, one after another. Off behind a hazy island mountain, over across the sea of Shiranui, the sun was setting. I sat down and caught a whiff of the thick grass, now better than a foot in height. Insects sang riotously.

I gazed at the landscape, my legs in my arms. Once the sun slipped over the horizon, the mountain peaks of Amakusa showed their stark blackish silhouettes in the afterglow. The landing-light arrays burned in clear flames on the grass of the airfield. The weeds stand at eye level now, and they swayed in the breeze, intermittently obscuring the red flares from view. “If his father or his son falls in the battle, a warrior gallop over the corpse and press the fight.” So says The Tale of the Heike of the eastern samurai. I mustn’t waver. I have no alternative but to become a gear in the machine, and I cannot yield to self-pity, but even as I say this, wayward feelings arise. I don’t know what to do with them.

This morning a Ginga crashed right after taking off. Engine failure brought it down. I was attending a lecture on instrument flight, when, all of a sudden, black smoke plumed up in the direction of the administration building. I ran from the classroom and saw it: the Ginga burning like fury, blazing in black-red flames, just off to the front of the gate. I simply gazed at it, struck dumb by such an astounding sight. A real warplane is spectacular even in ruins. Through the smoke, I caught glimpses of the charred wing. I knew full well that three men were being immolated in that plane, but to my surprise, I felt almost nothing. As for the Todoroki Unit, nonchalant about it all, they lost no time in resuming operations, even as black smoke scorched the sky. We, too, returned to our classroom in fairly short order to continue our lecture on instrument flight.

I am told that the area around Izumi, particularly the islands of Katsura-jima and Nagashima, off Komenotsu, bears a strong resemblance to Pearl Harbor, both in its geographic features and its ocean currents. It may be just a local boast, but they say that, before the war started, the combined fleet conducted secret training exercises here for its surprise maneuver, and, therefore, that we owe our one-sided victory at Oahu to this place. But it now appears that our very success at Pearl Harbor did Japan a disservice. For one thing, it united the whole of America with a slogan: “Remember Pearl Harbor.” For another, it encouraged a tendency in the navy to throw its weight around without really knowing its abilities. So much for the so-called “silent navy.” The newspapers rave, frothing with shopworn phrases like “Mow them down!” “Search and destroy!” “British and American devils!” and so forth, all of which, lo and behold, the navy’s central command incites. I suppose we had best replace the epithet “silent navy” with “chattering navy.” In point of fact, we are subject now to a rough and risky regime in our training, due largely to the deteriorating quality of the fuel, with its interfusion of alcohol, and now even that fuel is scarce. They say we will have to temporarily discontinue flying the intermediate trainers. Who can understand how a flier feels, held in such agonizing suspension?

The solid navy tradition is now a hollow shell. It holds to all the old patterns, but the spirit is gone. Is it any wonder if I criticize the Imperial Navy in its current incarnation? For example, we are specifically instructed to learn all necessary skills from the drill instructors, but never to associate with them in a personal way. Now, let’s say that the deck officers from the Naval Academy are white men. Well, they treat the enlisted ranks just like black slaves, and as for the student reserves and reserve officers—they regard us with the diffident suspicion that white men reserve for the “yellow” race. It is all so conventional, so aristocratic. There were times when I thought we must ourselves become infected with this attitude if we were to succeed as naval officers. But now I can’t help but consider it a bad case of Anglophilia. What could we possibly gain by deliberately opening up such chasms between the men? Anyway, in times like these we simply don’t have the luxury to go out sporting pure white collars.

A man from Kyoto visited today, with reports that they are suffering severe shortages of supplies. A student had gone out to meet him, expecting a gift of sweets or something, but as it turned out, he ended up offering food to the man from Kyoto. What a disappointment! He watched as the man wolfed it all down, saying, “It sure would be swell to be in the navy. Surely it would be.” Professor O. must be having a hard time getting his hands on his favorite Japanese confections.

September 17, Memorial Day for the Battle of the Yellow Sea

A typhoon has been approaching Kyushu since yesterday. With it come occasional bursts of rain. The barracks sprang a leak in the middle of the night, and we had to shift things around. Consequently, I didn’t get enough sleep.

A ceremony was held from 0745 on the first floor of the barracks, after which we sang martial songs written for the Battle of the Yellow Sea: “The Brave Fight of the Akagi,” “Audacious Sailors,” and so on. Afterwards, we were granted liberty.

We heard that the Kagoshima Main Line was blocked off around Hinagu, but the usual three of us managed our excursion to Minamata anyway. However, the train schedule made for a hectic visit. We arrived at the Fukais’ house at eleven and had to leave at half past one. It was as if we went there solely to eat lunch. Mrs. Fukai and Fukiko had to hustle to prepare a meal in time. Fukiko donned her rain gear and went out into the downpour to fetch something they needed, ignoring our pleas.

Today we were served satsuma-imo. As the name indicates, this region is the home of these yams, and they are certainly delicious, fluffy in texture, rather like chestnuts in taste, and not at all stringy. A package had arrived from Sakai’s family in care of the Fukais, and it contained dried chestnuts and pancakes. To our regret, the pancakes were moldy, but, after carefully wiping them off, we savored them nonetheless. They weren’t at all bad.

I told Fukiko about how, a while back, I paid my respects to the family during a training flight.

Fujikura broke in. “You did? So did I. I flew by during solo exercises just the other day. I could make out the stripes on Fukiko’s clothes quite clearly.” He seemed to take it for granted that Fukiko had turned out when I flew over. My heart sank.

“What time did you come?’ Fukiko asked me, casting her eyes up in an effort to remember. “It’s a wonder I didn’t notice. Had I gone off shopping? But if I was out, I should have noticed it all the more. What happened?” Again and again she said she was sorry.

“You shouldn’t be sorry.” I laughed, but it seemed both accidental and somehow not accidental that she had heard the roar of Fujikura’s plane and not the roar of mine. In any case, I wasn’t really amused.

We returned to base in a slashing rainstorm. The rain cascaded over the windows of the train, and we couldn’t so much as glimpse the scenery.

We haven’t flown in more than a week, but at last the fuel has arrived. We should resume operations when the weather cooperates. Once we start flying again, and once our formation drills are complete, they will tell us which type of aircraft each of us is to pilot. Never shall I regret having requested assignment to a carrier-based attack bomber. I shall face the prospect with an open heart. There are only ten days to two weeks left of our life here at Izumi.

September 20

Another Ginga crashed yesterday. At about half past seven, the southwestern part of the already-darkened airfield suddenly flushed red, and a number of men from the Todoroki Unit sprinted off. I myself didn’t go out to the site, but I was told that one Ginga, taking off at a speed of 80 knots, had plowed into another that was grounded for repairs. The reconnaissance crew and the signaler in the first plane died on the spot, and the pilot, who tumbled out engulfed in flames, was rushed off to the infirmary, out of which, at around ten o’clock at night, eight coffins emerged.

These days it is still dark at reveille, and there is a chill in the air. We do calisthenics after morning assembly, and as the alpenglow over Yahazutake Mountain diffuses across the eastern sky, taking on its tint of gold, one by one the black mountains shake off their sleep. And today, in the midst of such beauty, while we were engaged in calisthenics, outfitted all in white, as usual, three more coffins were borne from the infirmary. The toll of last night’s accident is three crew members and eight mechanics, and the cause was carelessness. They say the Ginga is difficult to service. It costs eight hundred thousand yen to build one, and they struggle to produce eighty planes a month.

The majority of the Todoroki Unit, however, set out for Okinawa at 0930 today, leaving behind them, at this station, the souls of their comrades. They boarded the officers’ bus in front of the administration building for their ride out to the airfield, and there they climbed into their planes, swords in hand, looking just as they do during daily training flights. “If you don’t hear of any significant results in twenty days,” this crew of the 13th Class told us, “then assume we have all been destroyed.” The signaler stood on the airplane waving a stick of some kind, and the Gingas lifted their tails and gallantly took off, one after another. The remaining forces of the Todoroki Unit, the student units, and everybody else drew up in columns along the runway and twirled their caps to see the men off. The Gingas flawlessly arrayed themselves in formation, took a course southward, and shortly disappeared from view.

As for us, we started instrument flying today. During the suspension of actual flights, we were trained quite well using a mock-up on the ground. This is a kind of aircraft-shaped box, into which we step, pulling down a curtain behind us. Only the control stick and the gauges are really lifelike, and as this motorized “airplane” quakes, we practice holding our position, solely by peering into a gauge. This is called “blind flight.” And today we begin airborne instrument flight training.

We made a dual flight, instructor in the back, student in the front. A hood, only the back of which opens, is pulled down over the cockpit. The instructor does the takeoff and landing from the rear seat.

The command “Commence instrument flight” came in through the voice tube, and, with that, the stick was in my hands, at an altitude of one thousand meters exactly. Actually, it is quite difficult to fly blind. The needle on the gauge wiggles neurotically, and we must hold it in the correct and level position. I tend to the left. When the nose is up, the needle rises above the level line, and when the nose drops down, the needle plunges.

“You’re going down! Watch out!” The scolding rang through the voice tube. I remember the experience well from the “dual” phase of formation flight training. The instructor, an aviation petty officer second class, would say, “What? Do you want to die!?” And availing himself of the elastic rubber voice tube, he would thwack my head from behind with its metal funnel. If that didn’t do the trick, in came the order: “Release your hands and raise them.” Well, it was no fun at all floating along in this banzai posture as a punishment. Thanks to the hood, I didn’t have to do a banzai this time around, but I did have to keep a close eye on all the instruments—speedometer, altimeter, oil pressure indicator, thermometer—even while enduring a good dressing down. The flight lasted about thirty minutes. I gathered that most of the time we had been over the ocean, though, needless to say, I couldn’t see anything at all.

When we completed our first round of instrument flights, the chief flight officer issued various instructions, and then he fell into a lament. The Army Air Corps, he says, lags far behind present-day aviation standards, and this is a problem. Army pilots know nothing of celestial navigation, and their instrument flight skills are dubious. Those who completed their course at Kagamiga-hara, in Gifu Prefecture, were instructed to make their “graduation” flight to Tokorozawa in Saitama. “Fly with Mt. Fuji on your left,” they were told, “and you’ll never get lost.” And one of the pilots did exactly that. He kept on flying with Mt. Fuji on his left until he made seven circles around the mountain, ran out of fuel, and had to make an emergency landing. I trust we will never find ourselves in so undignified a predicament. Until recently, army pilots hadn’t been capable of making the transoceanic flight from Kyushu to Formosa. Navy pilots had to escort them. Even so, by the time they reached Formosa, a number of army aircraft were missing in action. As the chief flight officer sees it, the Japanese military has served the nation badly, owing particularly to the “spiritualism,” and to the smug disdain for technology, that is rampant in the army.

I was a bit more confident during the second instrument flight. This is our last course at Izumi. The time to graduate from the Red Dragonfly draws near, though; come to think of it, while flights were suspended during the fuel shortage, the familiar Red Dragonflies were all painted dark green.

September 27

This is the last night I will ever sleep in the barracks at Izumi.

On the 22nd, I was told what type of aircraft I will fly. I have been assigned to carrier-based attack bombers and am to proceed to Usa. Fujikura drew the same assignment and the same posting. As for Sakai, he wavered toward carrier-based bombers after a Suisei, which flew through toward the end of last month, turned his head with its fancy maneuvers. He, too, is bound for Usa, to pilot a carrier-based bomber. The three of us must be linked up by some evil fate. Sixty-seven pilots for carrier-based attack bombers and forty-five for carrier-based bombers all ship out for Usa in the morning.

A rainbow arced across the evening sky today, but soon disappeared. It’s a clear night with a bright moon. I can see the clouds in the dark sky. The barracks are seething, as the Matsushima-bound men leave tonight. So, it is farewell to Wakatsuki. Each of us knows that we never see one another again, but all we say as we pass through the bustling hallways are things like “Hey, let’s hit the bottle when next we meet.” Everybody has a pleasant air and seems free of qualms. Loaned items have all been returned, and trunks are to be shipped out by truck. The men have little luggage. We shouldn’t leave behind us too many personal belongings, too much homesickness, too much friendship.

We had a farewell party in the evening. We set desks out on the moonlit morning assembly ground, and each of us had smelly sashimi made from frozen fish, clear soup, red rice, two ohagi dappled with a little bean paste, and a bottle of beer. Still, we were elated and raised our voices in song—heart and soul. We tossed the chief flight officer, our long-nosed goblin of Kurama, up into the air.

Yesterday afternoon we made our valedictory flight. Our formation of twenty-seven planes approached Komenotsu from the direction of Aknne. It was overcast and I couldn’t see the mountains in the distance, but nevertheless it’s so long, now, to the familiar sky where, on a clear day, I enjoyed a view of Saknra-jima at an altitude 600 meters, Takachiho at 1000, and Aso at 1500. It’s also goodbye to the chimney of the Japan Nitrogen Company of Minamata, which I always used as a landmark. I flew comfortably in the #2 position in the first element of the first wing.

As it turned out, we managed to finish our courses here without a single accident. All the same, I myself almost caused two, just before our departure. The mishaps are more frightening to recall than they were to endure, because if I die now, I die absolutely in vain. The first took place on the day we got our assignments, during a “group” instrument flight, with D. manning the front seat. I sat in back and pulled down the hood. All went well in the air. I handed control of the plane over to D., saying, “End instrument flight.” And, taking the hood into consideration as he prepared for landing, D. approached the strip at about sixty knots. But he misjudged our height when executing the “pullout.” This should be done at five meters, but instead it seems D. pulled the control stick at around seven meters in altitude. As if that weren’t enough, the stick was too responsive, and when he pulled it back halfway, we stalled at about four meters. And then we fell. My visibility was zero because of the hood, but I had been thinking we were too high. All of a sudden my body sank, and with a bam! came the impact, the aircraft touching down tail first, and then swirling to the left. We weren’t hurt, but the left undercarriage of the trainer was fractured. The second incident occurred two days later. I was flying over the ocean when, at the horizon of my field of vision, where sea and sky met, I saw enormous billowing clouds sweeping to the side. They looked like a mountain chain rising up, or a massive cataract pouring into the cradle of the deep. I was reveling in the spectacle when, with absolutely no warning, my propeller stalled. Surely this was due to the fuel, adulterated as it is with alcohol. Instantly I broke out in a cold sweat and totally lost my composure. I managed none of the emergency measures we had been taught. Anyhow, I shifted into a nosedive, whereupon the propeller started to crank, as if making sport of me.

We visited the Fukais the day before yesterday, to bid our farewell. They cooked red rice while awaiting our arrival. Even the carp in the pond wished us good luck on our departure, by becoming miso soup. I shall never forget the kindness of this family. We agreed that each of us would do one parlor trick. Sakai performed a card trick. Fujikura sang a silly song titled “Draw the Lamp and Catch the Lice,” augmenting it with gestures. I did a vocal mimicry of a Bunraku puppet show called “East and West, East and West.” Then all three of us sang “The Song of Trainee Pilots.” Fukiko rose and disappeared, tears welling up in her eyes. But tears for whom? Well, it won’t do to wonder. I must part gracefully.

It is ten forty-five now. “Those who are leaving this air station fall in in five minutes,” comes the announcement from the loudspeaker. the rest of the students assemble for the send-off.” So I take up my cap and go to see off the men bound for Matsushima.

Letter from Fujikura

We moved here at the end of September. The station sits in the middle of a field near Usa Hachiman-gu Shrine, about an hour and a half train ride from Beppu. A river, which bears the odd name of Yakkan, runs nearby. So-called “military rules” and “moral orders” are stringently enforced. When we disembarked at Yanagiga-ura station, on the Nippo Main Line, three officers were there to meet us, oak bludgeons in their hands. “We’re going to put you through the wringer. Prepare yourselves.” That was their greeting. For a moment I thought we were here to join a gang. Since then, all slowpokes, and all who forget their salute, get beaten, one and all, every morning. It would appear that hits to the jaw fall under the rubric of “routine maintenance,” and I get my maintenance at least three times a day. At night, I can hear, quite distinctly, the moans of the young trainees as those bullies put the screws to them. Do they actually believe they can arrest the fall of Japan with stunts like these?

Kashima, I know I haven’t written you for a very long time. Still, I’ve been reading the cards you send to Yoshino and Sakai from time to time as they come in, and when was it that I noticed, since parting with you at Otake, that you had begun to deliver yourself of such brave sentiments so often in your letters?

“Let your Manyoshu pay tribute to me,” you wrote. Now, did that really come from the bottom of your heart? I’m not being sarcastic, mind you. But I really would love to ask you how you could achieve such grace as that. The blunt fact of the matter is that I am immensely sad to see that even you have changed in this way.

Aren’t these strange days? Politicians, military men, scholars, poets—all of them exhort us, ad infinitum, to eat potatoes and die with a smile. But not a word do they have about how we can survive to reconstruct Japan. Who on earth is giving any thought to the matter? I guess the Manyoshu wasn’t quite the right subject to study, if we are aiming to face the world’s political and economical developments with a level head, standing in the midst of these turbulent currents. I don’t possess that order of confidence and ability. I simply object to this war because my instincts tell me to.

Before joining the navy at Otake, I sounded a number of people out for their opinions as to the outcome of this war. Only two predicted Japan would fail. One was a relative on my mother’s side, a rear admiral back from the southern theater, and the other was a consumptive old upperclassman from my junior high school days who had been engaged in underground leftist activities. According to the rear admiral, an attempt to overthrow British and American hegemony in Asia, with Japan taking the lead, was inevitable, a historical necessity. But what did Japan do to accomplish that end? She misjudged the timing, indulged in all manner of self-righteous foolishness, and now it’s indisputable: our defeat is a mathematical certainty. For his part, my junior high school buddy said his conviction that Japan would fall was rooted not in emotionalism and defeatism, but in scientific fact. And it was at that point that I became interested in both the navy and the Communist Party, odd though the combination may be. What these two men said is etched on my mind. Since joining the navy, however, I have grown weary of it. Nothing indicates to me now, in the present state of naval affairs, that the minority view can have any influence. Also, we were born a few years too late to take in any of the old leftist atmosphere in our campus life. Consequently we are anything but expert when it comes to Marxism. Had we been acquainted with the theory, even if we didn’t accept it wholesale, I wonder whether or not we might have been able to adopt a more scientific perspective.

However, let’s not split hairs. Maybe I’m just in a funk, but I simply can’t see any reason why I should bottle it up. I don’t want to die. I have no wish to sacrifice my life in this war. Kashima, why don’t we do the best we can to survive? Each time he reads your manly letters, Yoshino swells up with martial spirit and fresh courage. Don’t let’s be too gallant.

What’s your daily training like? The absolute minimum requirement for our survival is that we avoid accidents during our routine flight training. Since coming here, we have lost two men during orientation flights in the navy Type-97 carrier-based attack bomber. I think you remember 0. (from Doshisha Univ.) and H. (from Hakodate Fisheries College), with whom we have been together since Otake. The instructor aboard the plane survived, though with serious injuries, but the two students perished. When we lower the flaps, the nose drops, and we must correct the bias with the trim tabs. It appears, however, that the pilot inadvertently reversed the tabs, and he couldn’t pull out at an altitude of 200 meters. So the plane plunged into the sea, in a flash. I heard that the main wing was blown off when it hit the water. I was only two names away from this debacle on the flight roster. In the coffins, the men were adorned with the cherry-blossom insignia of ensign. It was a sad commission. Two students from Ryukoku University put vestments on over their military uniforms and read from the sutras. We held a wake for them all through the night, each member of the outfit taking a one-hour turn. They say the navy dislikes a quiet, solemn vigil, and that if the deceased loved to drink in life, well, then it should be “Bottoms up!” for a tribute. That’s all well and good, but when it turned out that we needed to fetch another funeral wreath, in addition to what we already had on base, the deck petty officer said, keeping a straight face, “No problem. And why don’t I get one more while I’m at it? We’ll need it for the next time anyway.” I was dumbfounded. We bore the dead off to a crematorium in Nakatsu today. We didn’t let the bereaved families see them, as the bodies were quite discolored. The stoker at the crematorium was feeble from malnutrition, and he moved about listlessly; his heart wasn’t in it. Very evidently he simply wished to be done with this task of setting the coffins ablaze. I was disgusted. But the parents, who had hurried all the way here, were too absentminded even to shed tears, and, in their apathy, they stood there looking like a regular bunch of stupid grown-ups. Maybe they couldn’t believe the coffins actually contained their sons. And what did the instructor say when we returned to base? “Don’t let one or two deaths dismay you. We’ll put you through the wringer twice as hard, starting tomorrow.”

Kashima, let’s take the utmost care to make it through our training. Let’s not earn the insignia of ensigns, or whatever, by dying. We can muddle along for the next several months, but then what will we do when we receive our commission, when we go into battle, when we make our sorties? No logic and no complaints will avail us then. I have known for quite some time that I will have to take measures, extreme measures, if I am to survive. I’m not yet at a point where I can say exactly how I am going to do this, not even to you. A thousand times the word “Coward!” crosses my mind, but I intend to banish it every time.

What I miss is the time I spent in Kyoto, as you might expect. I once expressed my gloomy feelings, and my nostalgia for Kyoto, in a long letter to Professor E., and received in return just another postcard of encouragement. I guess he had his reasons, but I had hardly written a letter of any kind before that, and since then I have been too discouraged to write to anyone again. I don’t wish to place you under any obligation, or to make any demands. But I am wondering if you might reply to this letter. I’m going to post it from Beppu on our next day of liberty. If you reply, address the letter to me “c/o Kajiya Inn, Kamegawa Hot Springs, Beppu.” Let me know the address you use on your outings, too.

So long, Kashima. Take care.