Burial in the Clouds Read online

  First, on the train to Beppu, Sakai started to crow, with exaggerated confidentiality, about what he claims is the real cause of Petty Officer D.’s suicide back at Izumi Naval Air Station. According to Sakai, the officer had VD. In a nosedive, the rapid acceleration dizzies even a healthy person, but if you are taking sulfa drugs, such as for the treatment of VD, aerobatics training is excruciatingly painful physically. And as a nosedive can leave you giddy for quite a while, it is unbearable mentally, too. The story itself wasn’t much of a revelation. And while on the one hand I thought it could explain the incident, I wasn’t really in the mood to hear that kind of story. Besides, Sakai unfolded his tale with ostentatious confidentiality, saying that he had heard it from the chief surgeon, and that we had better watch out for ourselves. He made such a fuss out of it that I was turned off by his tone. So, saying that I preferred to roam around by myself today, I parted with Sakai at Beppu Station. I also took leave of Fujikura, after we had all arranged to meet at Kajiya Inn in the evening.

  I walked along Nagare-gawa Street toward the mountain. An aircraft carrier stood offshore, at anchor, and as I headed back I noticed a sign, “Navy Hour in Progress,” hanging from the door of Senbiki-ya, a restaurant we had come by before. I dropped in, ate a persimmon and a fig, and was about to start in on a lunch of fried fish and pork cooked in soy sauce, when a lieutenant who was drinking at the next table addressed me. When I told him I was a student reserve officer at Usa Naval Air Station, he said, as if he wanted to pick a fight, “So what’s your morale like? You must be depressed, having been dragged into this hopeless navy. Aren’t you? Well, it’s written all over your face.”

  “No, sir,” I replied. “Everybody is in high spirits, especially after hearing the splendid results of the aerial engagement over Formosa. We are all itching to capitalize on the victory. We want nothing more than to master our skills as quickly as we can. And then we will set out to have our own duel with an enemy aircraft carrier.”

  The lieutenant soured and banged his beer glass on the table.

  “Stop it with your big talk,” he growled, glaring at me. I just gazed at his face for some time, startled. “Do you really believe the report that Imperial Headquarters issued?”

  “Is it a problem if I do?” I answered back. Again, he burst out with a guffaw. Evidently he is assigned to the Hosho, the carrier anchored offshore. His uniform was soiled and a trench knife dangled over it. He was obviously quite drunk, and also, it appeared, thoroughly desperate.

  “Do you want to know the truth?” the lieutenant said, and proceeded to inform me that a vast enemy task force had been steaming into Leyte Gulf since yesterday, accompanied by a number of attack transports that obviously intended to land.

  “Do you think that America could endlessly bring out these aircraft carriers,” he continued, “if we had been sinking them one after another? Do you think they are performing some kind of magic trick to produce these carriers?” Then he asserted that reports of the fighting at Formosa were riddled with cases where targets struck in night raids had been misidentified, and that the reports were also marred by wishful thinking.

  “The war situation is fifty times worse than you think. The central command should reflect on what it is doing. The Navy Press Bureau ought to be straightened out. And you. Don’t you talk so big, when you can’t even fly like an honest-to-god pilot.” He gulped down his beer, in terrible humor, and then he added, “Shall I dig potatoes? Do you want to see a crewman from a rattletrap carrier dig potatoes?” (“Dig potatoes” is navy slang for “tear this place apart.”)

  I wolfed down my lunch and excused myself, but I felt melancholy. It was astonishing that the Naval Academy could have produced, as I can only assume it did, an officer like this, but is there really any truth in what he told me? If, as this lieutenant maintains, we have been diving at oil tankers and landing craft and mistaking them all for aircraft carriers, then there is no reason why the enemy task force should be weakening. According to the lieutenant, the central command, half knowing what it was about, published its figures as an “official” report from Imperial Headquarters. But surely we men haven’t all been mustered simply to embellish the front pages of newspapers with false numbers.

  I had been wandering around in agitation, when it occurred to me that I intended to get a haircut, so I dropped into a barbershop along the seafront. A barbershop has a nice folksy smell about it. Tonic, cosmetics, steamed towels, and ear cleaning. I was somewhat able to calm myself at last, as I listened to the soothing sounds of the scissors.

  I felt better by the time I left the barber’s, so I decided to peek into a small shop of boxwood crafts. This area is noted for its boxwood.

  So busy!—the women divers of Shika,

  Cutting seaweed, roasting salt:

  They cannot spare a minute

  Even to take up a comb from the comb box.

  No thought now of taking up

  The boxwood comb from my comb box.

  Why should I adorn myself

  When you are not here to see me?

  I remembered poems from the Manyoshu for the first time in quite a while, and I thought I would like to buy a fine, pretty boxwood comb for someone (actually, I had a concrete “someone” in mind from the outset). I debated a good long time before deciding on an elegant, rounded comb, which I arranged to have sent to Miss Fukiko Fukai in Minamata. An hour or so later I joined Fujikura and Sakai at the inn in Kamegawa Hot Springs that we treated rather like a boarding house. The two of them were already drinking orange wine and eating brown chicken sashimi. By that time I had started to regret having done such a thing behind their backs, and I fell into a deep gloom. It would have been different had the three of us sent the gift together. How will Fukiko and her parents take my having done so all on my own account? I rather doubt they will accept it without a second thought. I just wanted to express my gratitude and special affection. It will pain me if they ignore the gesture, and it will present another kind of problem if they accept it. I can’t help feeling tenderness toward Fukiko. That’s one thing. But it is another thing altogether for a man who will most likely die within a year to give voice to that sentiment. This can only disturb her, and also me, and to no good purpose. I decided to cancel the delivery, and tried, without success, to find the comb shop’s telephone number.

  What a foolish thing to do! A dull sense of melancholy always sets in after a day of liberty, and the incidents of today make me feel it all the more. I took a bath at Kajiya, emptied the bottle of orange wine, and, having said almost nothing, returned to base before ten.

  October 25

  An alert was issued this morning: B-29s were flying over Cheju in four squadrons, making their way toward Japan. We sprinted out to field headquarters, and shortly thereafter ducked into the air-raid shelter.

  Today’s cloud index was nine. The ceiling was six to seven thousand meters, and the enemy aircraft flew at an altitude of about five thousand meters. As I took a peek out of the shelter, beautiful vapor trails emerged through the rifts in the clouds to the northwest, lengthening as the planes moved eastward. For the first time I heard the roar of American aircraft. I felt carefree, as if I were watching a sporting event.

  These days we are constantly forced to forego training flights and my body is rusting away. Fuel supplies are very tight, and our allocation has been cut in half. We consider ourselves lucky if we get to fly every other day. Our training period has been extended accordingly, and now we are to receive our commission on December 25, three months behind schedule. The German army has withdrawn from Aachen. The Allies will penetrate the Rhineland. The defeat of Germany is in sight. What will ever become of Japan?

  I happened to be next to the division officer in the shelter, so I asked him candidly about what I heard the other day from that lieutenant attached to the Hosho.

  “Misidentification of targets isn’t that unusual during a nighttime attack,” he said, “but the reports issued by Imperial Headq
uarters are generally considered reliable. Even the enemy trusts them. I wouldn’t expect to find any really significant or factitious errors. Truth be told, the Hosho can’t withstand actual combat. She just hangs around the Seto Inland Sea for use as a training carrier. With her, it’s the same as it is on warships like the Yamashiro. She tends to collect crewmen who fall behind in promotion, due to health problems or some such thing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they gripe whenever they get the opportunity out of smoldering frustration.” I was a little relieved. I certainly have my gripes against the navy. But still, I have more faith in it than that lieutenant.

  October 29

  Flights were canceled again.

  News of a decisive sea battle in the Philippines. More magnificent results.

  The commander-in-chief of the combined fleet had issued an urgent message: “Trust in divine favor and launch an all-out attack.” And with that began a colossal naval engagement, in which the fleet employed its primary guns, an unusual thing these days. They say, however, that the enemy aircraft carriers swarming around Leyte Gulf number close to a hundred. This means that, even if we did in fact sink nineteen enemy carriers, it would hardly be a devastating blow. The material resources of the enemy astonish me.

  “It’s like fighting with King Kong,” G. commented. We all laughed, though tensely.

  When I heard that the warship Musashi was cruising along at twenty knots after absorbing six torpedoes, I took heart, thinking that the ship had lived up to its unsinkable reputation. But soon enough came news, strictly confidential, of its sinking. I’m at a loss for words. The greatest warship in the world is gone, the battleship over which I flew while at Izumi (the stunt that landed me in such hot water). I can only hope, desperately, that we are misinformed.

  November 1

  We were supposed to fly this afternoon, but the ring of a telephone put an end to that. A student in my outfit laughed in despair, bending backward in his chair.

  I received a thank-you letter from Fukiko in which she said she really liked the boxwood comb. I hid the letter immediately, embarrassed by my act and conscious of others’ eyes, though, needless to say, I opened it again when I went to bed at night, and read it over and over, three or four times. Apart from what she said in appreciation of the comb, the letter was simple and light, which was both a relief and a disappointment. Afterwards I indulged myself in a daydream for quite some time, concerning which I am too embarrassed to write.

  “Please send my best regards to Mr. Fujikura and Mr. Sakai,” she said, but how can I send her best regards to them?

  We did some repair work on the airfield this afternoon, draining it and filling it in with earth. In other words, it was hard labor. They are building a new runway on the eastern part of the field, in preparation for the 3rd Air Fleet’s advance to Usa. Our task is to carry the surplus soil in rope baskets all the way back out here and fill in the hollows with it. The airfield is built over clayey soil and drains poorly. Consequently, it lacks the proper grading and is pocked with bumps. At 1630, the time set to stop, we had not yet completed half the task. A number of Korean laborers were assigned to the eastern runway, though only a handful were in fact applying themselves to the work, and the rest, several hundred in number, had no drive at all. They dawdled along for a spell, and then simply stopped altogether, staring about, vacantly. I gained a new idea of the Korean people, quite different from the sympathetic attitude I took when I was thinking about them in the abstract.

  Speaking of airfield maintenance, I remember a story that an instructor told us. He said that enemy troops always seemed to land, whether on Guadalcanal, Attu, or elsewhere, just a scant week or so prior to the completion of construction work on our airfields. Our Corps of Engineers works unremittingly, and at great length, to build these airfields with manual labor, only to have them seized just before they are ready to be put in service. The enemy occupies them, easily finishes off the work with heavy equipment, and within a day or two begins using the fields to stage attacks against us.

  During the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the 1st Air Fleet deployed an extraordinary unit called the Shinpu Special Attack Force (a.k.a., the “Kamikaze”). It seems the fighters were fitted out with special bombs, and the crews hurled themselves, planes and all, into enemy targets. Well, I suppose we won’t get anywhere in this war unless we resort to drastic measures like that. Any man who wants to drop out, let him do it now. For my part, I no longer have any reservations about this kind of tactic. My only worry now is that I can’t get up in the air. Who knows when I will fly the Type-97 solo.

  They say the commander of the special attack force, a Lieutenant S., got his training in the carrier-based bomber unit here, and that he left Usa shortly before we arrived. The women at Senbiki-ya in Beppu wept at the news of the kamikaze attacks, remembering what the lieutenant had told them only a few days earlier: “If I die, lay out an offering of shiruko and fruit.” So I’m told anyway.

  November 5

  Finally, after a long hiatus, we resumed training, starting with formation flights. From 500 meters up, I saw clearly just how bad this airfield is. Basically, it is nothing but a stretch of swamp. “Why don’t we let the Yanks occupy the field for a while?” someone joked.

  Flying in formation is hazardous. These aircraft don’t shed their momentum as quickly as the intermediate trainers, and it’s hard get a sense of space. I took three blows to the jaw for landing at seventy-five knots. I was fined one yen and fifty sen as well. M. had to cough up ten fifty-sen silver coins for damaging the tail of his plane as he taxied onto the apron. Failing to erase the blackboard neatly costs you two fifty-sen pieces. They will rack up a considerable sum of money by the time we graduate, so long as we continue to fly. From the previous class they collected two thousand yen.

  When we land, we tend to the aircraft. The undersides of the wings and fuselages are liable to be caked with dirt, especially if you glide in over the mud. It’s quite a chore to wipe it all off.

  Sunshine soon fanned out through the clouds, revealing a clear autumn sky. Young trainee pilots engaged in dive-bombing drills. Now and again they plunged, with an almighty roar, down over the field headquarters, almost to the point of crashing into it. Their planes dropped headlong, generating clouds at the wingtips. One came in especially low, scattering willy-nilly a flock of birds perched on the roof. If the pilot had pulled out just half a second later, he would have been a goner. When you’re up in the air, you tend to be so preoccupied with precision, lest you get a dressing down, that the danger tends to escape your mind.

  “Reading the personal remarks you submit,” the chief flight officer commented, “I often come across such phrases as “I must cultivate my character.’ Indeed, it is important to cultivate your character. But what we want now are men who can win the war. We will welcome any miscreant at all, so long as he can hurt the enemy. Do the very best you can to cultivate your skills.” He makes perfect sense, of course, but it’s not so easy to cultivate our skills when flights are canceled, day after day.

  Flight rations were distributed again, all manner of new goodies, like wine, black tea, “energy food,” an instant cinnamon drink.

  November 10

  As the sumo match set for the 14th approaches, the conflict between the recon students from the Naval Academy and us student reserves has been bursting to the surface. In any naval unit there is always considerable friction between Academy graduates and student reserves. On this particular occasion, however, we have a remarkably powerful lineup, including former collegiate sumo wrestlers, and the recon students have little chance of winning. The situation so frustrates them that they seize every possible occasion to pick at us, and deliver their corrections in the most spiteful of ways.

  “Student reserves shall remain after everyone is dismissed,” declared a recon student (a deck officer probationer, to be specific) at morning assembly today. Unfortunately, someone had left a book on military intelligence, strictly confidential mater
ial, on a desk during the special gymnastics course yesterday, and the recon students confiscated it. First, we endured a round of blows. These men aren’t experienced at the business, but they certainly throw themselves into it, pounding away heavily. It is awfully painful.

  “There is a reason why you are so careless with confidential material,” said this deck officer probationer. “Namely, your spirit is more degraded than that of a common conscript, and you will receive a correction commensurate with that fact.” He then proceeded to place conscripts’ caps on each of us (they’d gathered them up from the barracks), ordering us all to “hold a push-up” for twenty straight minutes. It was mortifying. The eyes of some among us brimmed with tears. These Academy men are happy precisely insofar as they manage to bully us in the most humiliating way they can devise. It has nothing whatsoever to do with maintaining military discipline, or with “guiding” their junior comrades. Only six or seven of the ensigns among the recon students ever initiate this sort of conduct, with ten or so more chiming in. Many others adopt a courteous attitude toward us, but it is always the ruder fellows who take the lead on occasions like this. And we can’t defy them head-on because a wall of rank stands between us.

  When the second half of the 13th Class (our immediate predecessors) arrived at this base with their commissions, the recon students were still uncommissioned midshipmen. The reserve students actually outranked them. Even so, there was endless trouble, or so I hear. One day a recon student failed to salute a student reserve officer who happened to be an ensign, and the ensign struck him. That night the entire 13th Class was summoned to the lecture hall. “Student reserve officers are strictly subsidiary to men from the Naval Academy,” they were informed. “It is absolutely outrageous for a student reserve to strike a graduate of the Naval Academy. You have sullied our illustrious tradition.” At that absurd declaration, a bunch of lieu-tenants and lieutenants junior grade (instructors assigned to the recon students) ganged up to pommel the 13th Class. No doubt pent-up anger toward our predecessors is making the situation all the more difficult for us.