Burial in the Clouds Read online

  Tonight we watched a movie titled The Twenty Thousand Kilometer Front, which was not much more than parts of old newsreels cobbled together. Watching these images, most of which date from around the time we captured Singapore, I was overcome by the conviction that we are living in a completely different era.

  November 30

  No flights.

  Time passes drowsily. We eat, do “formation flights” on bicycles to ease our minds, eat yet again, read novels, and sleep, and that’s about all we do. Recently, all maki-zushi has vanished from the canteen, leaving buns with azuki-bean paste standing alone on the shelf. However, rations of roasted seaweed are plentiful, so breakfast is quite good. Turnips show up every day as pickles. The pickles have a faint preservative odor, but I enjoy their radishy bite.

  To possess a robust body, with a healthy appetite for food and sex; to employ the mind well and often; to bequeath to the next generation superior offspring and a real intellectual inheritance: that is the ideal life for a man. However, the national crisis compels us to curb certain aspects of our character, both physical and spiritual, and to develop certain other aspects to unnatural extremes. We have accepted the situation, and have done our best to accommodate ourselves to it. But now we find ourselves thrown into a life where we just stuff our bellies, engage in pointless physical labor, and then sleep it all off. I can’t imagine a more miserable situation for any man who wishes to get a sense of what he really is. Some indulge themselves in pleasure, precisely as if they didn’t want to “fall behind in the Realm of Famished Ghosts,” using their status as navy warbirds for cover. These men I used secretly to regard as “fighting pigs,” but now it seems we are all “non-fighting pigs.”

  Exams. An epidemic of fraud. And no wonder the epidemic spreads, because why on earth should “pigs” learn the theory of celestial navigation? I don’t peek at others’ exam papers myself, but I let my neighbors sneak a look at mine. And if I don’t cheat, it’s not because I hate the fraud, but because I don’t give a damn about my grades.

  I grow terribly forgetful. Not being able to recollect what I was thinking only the night before is getting to be an everyday affair. The English word for “kawa” slipped out of my memory, and I couldn’t find it again for the life of me. I asked Sakai, but he said he didn’t know, either.

  “Wouldn’t ‘river’ do?” said a fellow who’d overheard us, making a face.

  “Yes, that’s it. It’s ‘river.”’ We laughed.

  December 4

  Still no flights.

  A certain Lt.jg Tanaka came on deck toward evening to have a little talk with us. He is a stout man and holds a fifth rank in judo. He had been making a sortie to the Philippine Islands when bad visibility forced him to make a landing at Oita; that’s how he ended up here. He described to us how the aircraft carrier Ryu-jo went down just east of Bougainville Island in August 1942. On board the sinking ship, he almost suffocated from the smoke and had to sustain himself on the air trapped in desk drawers. “Just look at you,” his superior officer had said, “what are you sucking at when you’re about to die anyway?” And yet, he managed to survive. Now he is attached to a special attack force of carrier-based “Suisei” bombers. He will head for the Philippines as soon as the weather clears. Once there, he will take to the air outfitted lightly, with neither a reconnaissance crew nor machine guns—in fact, carrying nothing but a No. 80 (800 kg) bomb, lashed to the plane with straw rope. He will make his charge at 350 knots.

  “I’ll receive a special promotion,” he said, “jumping two ranks at once. Soon I be a lieutenant commander.” He smiled. Obviously you can give up your life, but not your honor. Whatever the case, this lieutenant has only ten days or so left to live.

  He had more news, too, about the so-called “human torpedoes,” or “Kaiten,” and also about the German V-1. The V-1 is said to be smaller than a Link trainer, with wings less than two meters long. The Germans bomb the city of London with it, using radio-control. We don’t have the technology to control a plane by radio. So instead we place a man into a small, rocket-propelled craft similar to the V-1. It flies at 600 kilometers per hour for two minutes, with a range of thirty-five miles. After that the thing just glides until it crashes into the target. A Type-1 or Type-96 land-based attack bomber hugs this flying bomb to its belly until the target is within range. The device is so small that, once the pilot is on board, it can carry only one No.25 (250 kg) bomb at most. Consequently, even if it hits the target directly, it does little damage. It seems the “human torpedo” is a little more effective.

  I can honestly say that I need no double promotion, and that I have no wish to be a war hero, but I have to wonder: Am I really content to crash headlong into an enemy ship knowing all the while that my sacrifice cannot possibly destroy it?

  December 9

  A fourth December 8th has come and gone, with no good results to show for it. The “divine winds,” the “kamikaze,” seem to be blowing in the wrong direction. Anyway, today the wind comes in strong from the west, and I can see, through the windowpanes of the ordnance classroom, the occasional flurry of snow. It’s pretty cold for Kyushu at the beginning of December.

  An inquiry from the OD’s room arrived this afternoon. “We’re putting on a show. Do any of you student reserves want to join in?” We agreed to do it. After all, we still want to feel the breeze of the free world.

  “Look. Some broad is headed for the drill hall,” a fellow said.

  “She’s wearing silk stockings,” said another.

  For all the fuss we made, the show turned out to be a bore. The singing and dancing were low camp, teasing our sexual desire to no good purpose, grimly rekindling old dormant dreams. And then came a speech from the city hall clerk in charge of the event. “We devote ourselves to our modest art. Blah-blah-blah.” It disgusted me. What we need is fuel, or, failing that, to be allowed to return to campus as free men. Nothing else will console us. I haven’t heard anything from Kyoto lately.

  They say, “Nothing can wait in the air.” Failure always means the end. Airmen are meant to live life to the absolute fullest, every single day, but our lives at this base are empty and dull, every single day. What should I do?

  December 14

  “Battle stations! Battle stations!” The warning came in yesterday around half past one. A large formation of enemy bombers was moving north over Chichi-jima Island. And today the morning papers report that some eighty B-29s raided Tokyo, Shizuoka, and Aichi. It looks like Saipan and Tinian are rapidly taking shape as major enemy bases for strategic bombing. My brother’s body must be cast off somewhere in the corner of an airfield, his bones laid bare to the rains. According to the papers, damage from the B-29s wasn’t severe, but I worry that the raids might have aggravated the damage already done by the earthquake that struck the Tokai district just the other day.

  We had a visitor from Tokyo. He says they suffered successive raids on November 24, 25, 26, 29, and 30. Gotanda Station is completely destroyed. And the used-bookstore district around Kanda is a stretch of wasteland.

  “Does that mean such-and-such place now has an unobstructed view ofX?”

  “So that store is gone now, too, huh?”

  Whinnying like horses, the Tokyo men in our outfit cajoled one another.

  “It’s no laughing matter,” they conceded, amid guffaws, “but what else can you do?”

  A mood of defeat pervades the metropolis, our visitor says, and conditions at the aircraft factories, etc., are not so rosy as the newspapers and the radio would have us believe. Recently, the workers have been staging ever more serious slowdowns. I cannot approve of such behavior, but I can imagine how easily these men fall apart, once they’ve been stripped of hope and pride. Even at this air station we had an incident. An unidentified man called headquarters repeatedly, until he was good and satisfied that the commander himself was on the line. Then he let the curses fly. “You blockheaded murderer! You should be the first to die!” It was determined that
the call came from inside the base, but those in charge decided not to pursue the matter. Well, it’s okay by me if they don’t, but the constant internal squabbling, the rumors, the general collapse of discipline—it is all the sign of a nation in decline. For my part, I attend more closely to military discipline, and if at times I have to correct the enlisted men, so be it.

  According to the newspaper, the U.S. Navy has now developed a prototype for a new fighter plane whose payload exceeds that of our dive-bombers, and whose top airspeed is 1,020 kilometers per hour, which is just shy of the speed of sound (1,200 kph). It translates into 680 knots, or twice the speed of our standard 300 knots. The Americans have produced a real menace. They say the enemy lost eighty-eight aircraft carriers during the past year, but I don’t know if I can blindly trust that figure. All I know for sure is that we have only three or four carriers left on our side.

  Training flights are supposed to resume in mid-January, but for the time being we are completely shut out of the sky. Everything is in a slump. We enjoy an abundance of oranges (as a matter of fact, we each received ten today), but that’s only because this region produces a lot of oranges and they can’t ship them out due to reductions in carrying capacity.

  Today’s lecture was on radio homing, direction-finding, and the protocols for carrier-based takeoff and landing. I’m no good at theory, and when I don’t follow the lecture, I get sleepy, and when I fall asleep, I get a chill. Anyway, what’s the use of learning how to take off and land on carriers that we no longer possess? Forty-five men from the Army Air Corps are bunking at the drill hall these days to attend the navy lectures. They even hauled in a huge navigation drawing board for the purpose. I guess the Army finally sees the need to master modern scientific methods of navigation. But I have to say, they are, as always, a few steps behind, and it is getting late in the day.

  December 18

  Cadet S.’s father died of a rare disease in which blood clots block up the capillaries. He traveled to Tokyo to attend the funeral and returned to base last night.

  According to the information S. brought back, the damage Tokyo suffered in the raids isn’t quite as bad as we imagined. The fire brigades did a tremendous job, managing to contain most of the damage from the incendiary bombs. He could see the B-29s flying in at 8,000 meters, mere dots in the sky. And though he couldn’t make out the fighters, he knew they were there because they gleamed as they rolled over. We fire our high-angle guns relentlessly, but the enemy bombers evade them. The student service units are really pitching in, devoting themselves body and soul. Apparently, it’s the regular factory hands who generally lack discipline. As for the ordinary people: They still have the heart to browse around the Ginza, outfitted in gaiters, gas masks, and tin hats. They even staged a concert in Hibiya. Unmistakably there are fewer men around. On the other hand, the earthquake damage all along the Sea of Enshu is worse than we thought. The railroad bridge over the Oh-i River collapsed, totally disrupting transportation and distribution networks. Recovery along the Tokaido Line simply isn’t a prospect this year. It was amusing to see how curious we were to hear S.’s report. We were all ears, as if he had been to Persia or Egypt.

  On Saturday morning, somewhere out behind the lavatory and the barracks, someone struck a seaman for failing to salute, and at around 11 o’clock today the culprit was ordered to reveal himself. The seaman suffered a broken cheekbone, and according to the chief surgeon’s examination, the injury might permanently impair his ability to chew. He claims a student reserve officer corrected him. Well, the incident has already surfaced, and unless the perpetrator comes forward, they say the case be referred to a court martial. So, after lunch, every student reserve who punched a seaman on Saturday went to the sick bay to meet the boy, one by one. But he didn’t finger any of us. I went, too, having corrected a petty officer for failing to salute me out by the swimming pool Saturday morning. I wasn’t in any danger, since my set-to obviously involved a different man at a different place, but the whole event set me to brooding again. Just a few days back I resolved to strike enlisted men if I thought it would help maintain discipline, but in truth, the impulse to strike doesn’t necessarily spring from high-minded deliberation. More often than not, “maintaining discipline” is just the excuse we use to blow off steam.

  The seaman with the broken cheekbone will probably be sent back out into the free world. He certainly has my deepest sympathy. He returns to his parents a cripple, and not because of a battlefield injury, but because of a blow he took for failing to salute. What will the villagers say? What will his parents think of the navy? And how will he make a living for the rest of his life? I have decided not to raise my hand against anyone after all.

  Fujikura saw me go off to sick bay, and when I got back, he said, “If you really think you can save Japan by dying, go ahead and die. I won’t stop you. But even you don’t really believe you can save the country by beating up a seaman, now, do you? If you engage in this sort of behavior to vent your indignation over blows you took from recon students or instructors, why don’t you strike back at them instead? Think about the feelings of those seamen recruits, men who can’t vent their anger on anybody. Maybe skipping the occasional salute is the only way they have to relieve their frustration. I don’t care if they don’t salute me. And if what you call ‘military spirit’ continues to manifest itself like this, well, I may really lose my patience with you.”

  I had already thought better of my earlier resolution when Fujikura let loose on me, and his words got on my nerves. “It’s none of your business,” I retorted, “who do you think you are anyway? You flatter yourself with your great humanity and civility, but you’re nothing but an egotist.” I continued in that vein for a spell. Lately, Fujikura has drifted away from the other men in our division. I have little contact with Sakai, as he is in the bomber division, and I miss Kashima immensely, probably because we are so far apart.

  But as for that injured seaman, his story gradually changed as the day wore on, and the details are now obscure. The account differs according to whom he tells it to. Now it’s not even certain that the perpetrator was a student reserve. Judging from all the information, he was likely punched either by an assistant division officer (a special services officer), or else by one of the veteran petty officers, the men seamen fear the most. But this seaman couldn’t bring himself to name the offender, and when he was questioned he laid the blame on the student reserves, the men with whom he has the least contact anyway. It was all a first-rate nuisance for us student reserves, but I felt for his situation.

  As night fell, the top brass sent down a message: “If all student reserves swear they have not harmed this seaman, we accept your word and consider the case closed.” They are adopting an air of great magnanimity. It’s strange, though, that they should so easily settle a matter that might well have merited a court martial. It makes me suspicious. From the point of view of the men at the top, the perpetrator must be very inconveniently situated.

  December 20

  Last night there was a titanic storm. Gales gathered from the four corners of the universe to smash us, and I felt the rumbling in my gut. After that, a blizzard set in, and it has been snowing all day long. At first, the soft cottony flakes vanished when they touched the ground, precisely as if they had been sucked into it, but soon enough they started to pile up, and when the sun finally peeked out, the snow in front of the motor pool glittered. It really was lovely.

  Flights are still suspended. The enemy has landed on Mindoro. Three oil tankers are said to have made port at Kure, under an imposing escort, but from the looks of it our fuel won’t arrive for a while yet. Beginning on the 26th, the carrier-based bomber group will fly Type-99s. The prospect sends them into raptures, as they are to graduate to the Type-99 before they’ve even completed the regular course in the Type-96. The Type-99, it seems, can burn alcohol fuel without much retrofitting. There was talk of our resuming flights, too, once we obtain the fuel. But our Type-97 attack bomb
ers can’t tolerate alcohol fuel without a thorough refitting of both tank and carburetor, so the plan has been scratched.

  Lieutenant Commander F. lectured this afternoon on the art of signal communication. Then he gave us a lesson in combat based on the Battle of Leyte Gulf, focusing particularly on the special attack force. Incidentally, he also described, in detail, the destruction of our airfield at Tainan (in Formosa). That field is now totally unusable, with the result that the Tainan Air Corps has been disbanded, its crews and aircraft dispersed to various bases. Many came to Usa, Lt. Cdr. F. among them.

  His account of the decimation of Tainan is as follows.

  Thirty or so Grumman fighters came in first, gaining command of the skies around the airfield, and here is how they did it: The enemy fighters approached in a stacked formation, the lower squadron flying in at 300 meters with a “rising sun” emblem painted on their wings (that was a base tactic). Some claim that the emblems actually changed, in accord with special beams of light emitted from their sister-planes: the rising sun one minute, U.S. insignia the next. But however that may be, our men were led to believe, all the way up to the bitter end, that these fighters had come to assist them. Our twenty Zeroes were shot down the second they took to the air. Next, Grumman carrier-based bombers flew in to attack. Their bombsights are very precise, and most of our hangars and other facilities were destroyed by direct hits on dive-bombing runs. I should say in passing that America’s bombsights (could they be radar-assisted?) have recently attained a formidable degree of accuracy: a margin of thirty meters from an altitude of 8000 meters. Also, there are a number of female pilots among the U.S. Navy. One of them went down in a parachute, and a native Formosan chased her, wooden stick in hand. When she was captured, she purportedly insisted that somebody “Show me the guy who shot me down!”