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.