“They’ll be okay, won’t they?” I asked Miyabe-san, who stood beside me as we saw off the Zero formation.
“With Sakai-san and Nishizawa-san, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about,” Miyabe-san replied. “Even so, 560 nautical miles is a punishing distance. At cruising speed, that’ll take them over three hours. They’ll have only a little over ten minutes to fight over Guadalcanal.”
“Over three hours?”
“Considering how much fuel they’ll need for the return trip, they can’t risk fighting for much longer. The medium bombers have a better flight range than the Zeros, and a navigator calculates the route, which is reassuring. But the Zeros are single-seated. If any of them wanders off-course or takes unnecessary detours, there’s a real chance the Zero won’t make it back.”
“But they’ve got the bombers with them, so they should be able to stay on course. Isn’t that right?”
“Getting there, yes. But if they get separated from the formation during the air battle at Guadalcanal, they’ll have to get back to Rabaul unaided. It’s not exactly easy to navigate 560 nautical miles over open seas with nothing but a map and a compass.”
Listening to Miyabe-san, I realized his explanation was that of a former aircraft carrier pilot. They were the words of a man who’d traveled over the ocean in search of the enemy’s military vessels with no landmarks to guide his way, returned back to his home carrier after the attack, and done it all over again numerous times.
That morning, the whole base was filled with a heavy, oppressive atmosphere. The aircrew had at first been enthused over the chance to avenge our fallen comrades at Guadalcanal, but once they had calmed down they realized just what it meant to attempt a strike on the enemy on an island 560 nautical miles away.
According to the map, if you flew due east over a string of islands, you reached the target. Even separated from the formation, you could simply fly back along the same route. In case of heavy cloud cover, though, the islands wouldn’t be visible, and you’d have to depend on your map and compass.
At around 15:00, we heard a familiar roar. We dashed out of the barracks and looked skyward to see friendly planes. The attack force had returned from Guadalcanal, seven hours after sortieing. They weren’t in formation and landed as they pleased. Most of the medium bombers bore bullet holes, proving that it had been quite an arduous battle.
The biggest shock was the number of Zeros that made it back. There were only ten. Seven had been downed.
All the faces of the Zero pilots as they stepped out onto the tarmac spoke of bone-deep exhaustion. FPO1 Nishizawa looked downright gaunt, and it seemed to be all he could do just to get out of his aircraft. I learned afterwards that PO1 Nishizawa had been like a whirlwind, downing six Grummans that day.
All the pilots headed directly to the command post for the debriefing. I ran up to PO1 Nishizawa.
“Where’s PO1 Sakai, sir?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s all right, considering who it is we’re talking about. No easy prey,” he replied with a laugh and slapped me on the shoulder. But it seemed to take all the strength he had left to put a smile on his face.
It was fairly common to split up during combat and return in smaller groups, so I shouldn’t have been particularly worried, but realizing that PO Sakai’s plane was one of the seven that hadn’t made it back intensified my anxiety.
Petty Officer Sakai was a flight leader. As I said before, a flight consists of three planes. PO Sakai was an extremely gifted flight leader. Up until that point, he had never once lost a plane under his command. “Saburo Sakai” always gets the limelight as a flying ace that shot down dozens of enemy aircraft, but I thought it was far more magnificent that he had never once lost a wingman. By the way, Nishizawa-san had a similarly excellent track record as flight leader. I heard that the only time he lost a man was in his final air battle.
In any case, it was highly unusual for Sakai-san to have become separated from his flight.
After a while, a report came in that five Zeros had crash-landed on Buka Island, to the east of Rabaul. They had run out of fuel and couldn’t make it back to base. However, PO Sakai was not among those pilots either.
Another hour passed and still there was no sign of him. He would have run out of fuel by then.
Just after 16:00, a Zero suddenly appeared on the far side of the airfield. A commotion erupted on the base. The Zero tottered and staggered as it came in for a landing. I thought it was strange. PO Sakai would never be so wobbly during a landing.
The Zero slowly approached the runway. I saw the windshield was shattered, which meant bullets had gone through the cockpit. The Zero bounced on landing as though a novice pilot was at the controls. It taxied down the runway, eventually coming to a standstill.
Squadron CO Lieutenant Commander Nakanishi and Lieutenant Junior Grade Sasai clambered onto the wings, pried open the shattered windshield, and dragged FPO1 Sakai from the cockpit. All the crewmembers who had rushed forward to help gasped when they caught sight of him. Dried blood had given his face a dark cast, and his upper body, too, was covered in blood.
After getting out of the plane, Petty Officer Sakai said sharply, “I will go to make my report.”
“You need medical attention first,” Lt. JG Sasai yelled. He and PO Nishizawa held up PO Sakai’s body in their arms. I helped by propping him up from behind. His whole body reeked of blood.
“No, I will report first,” PO Sakai declared. I thought he surely had to be some kind of a demon.
“Pilot senior, you’re not fully aware of the extent of your own injuries,” PO Nishizawa said, but PO Sakai kept on walking towards the command post on his own two feet. The moment he finished his report, he was carried to the infirmary.
Details of PO Sakai’s report quickly spread through the ranks. On the way back after the raid on Guadalcanal, he had mistaken a formation of enemy carrier-based bombers for fighters and attacked them from behind.
He had made a terrible mistake despite being a pilot of his caliber. A fighter is completely defenseless from a rear attack, but bombers have a pair of swivel-mounted machine guns in the back. PO Sakai had charged into a formation of eight carrier-based bombers from the rear. Even though the swivel-mounted guns on bombers had a far lower accuracy compared to fighter planes’ fixed guns, facing eight bombers’ rear gunners was a different matter. A barrage of bullets fired from sixteen machine guns greeted him.
They blew away his canopy, a bullet grazed his skull, and shards of his windshield pierced both of his eyes, effectively blinding him. With his vision clouded over and his left arm paralyzed as a result of the impact to his head, he flew back to Rabaul using just his right hand, blood flowing profusely from his head wound.
“Only Petty Officer Sakai could have made it back under such conditions. He is incredible, just incredible,” Flight Leader Miyabe said. I could only nod silently in agreement. “But the rest of us aren’t up to it. Petty Officers Nishizawa and Sakai are true masters. Not everyone can pull off what they did. This battle is going to be really tough.” The flight leader’s voice had a grim tone as he predicted the hellish fighting to come.
That day, five medium bombers were lost, and there were six unreturned Zeros including those that had crash-landed on Buka Island. Most tragic was the fate of the nine carrier-based bombers that had undertaken a one-way mission. The bombers had received orders to ditch in a designated area of the ocean after attacking, but only four crewmen were rescued by seaplanes. Fourteen expert aircrew lost their lives that day.
The next day at 0800, I set out for Guadalcanal as Miyabe Flight’s second plane. A total of fifteen Zeros—every single one at Rabaul that could be deployed—sortied that day. The formation of medium bombers, all of them armed with torpedoes, numbered twenty-three. Apparently, they had carried bombs the previous day. They’d initially planned to carry out a raid on Port Moresby when new orders to attack the troop transport convoy had suddenly come down, and they hadn’t had time to switch to torpedoes.