But that fear was nothing compared to what I felt when I went into the dive. The instant the Ohka was cut loose from the mother plane, it fell about 300 meters at an incredible speed. The powerful negative g-force made all the blood in my body race to my head. It felt ready to pop open. My guts felt like they were being squeezed out of my mouth. Doing my best not to lose consciousness, I had to pull the control stick with all my might, aiming the gliding rocket towards the airfield. Once close to the ground, I had to pull even harder to bring the rocket into level flight. This caused yet another unimaginably intense g-force, and my vision blacked out briefly. I felt like I was on the verge of passing out. It’s possible that my friends who’d failed to pull out of the dive had in fact fainted at that point. The Ohka landed with a tremendous impact, like my whole body had been slammed against the pavement.
I’ve lived for eighty years, but I have never experienced anything more terrifying than that. Of course, the fear of the kamikazes who actually crashed into enemy ships must have been even greater.
In July, I was transferred to Omura Base in Nagasaki as an Ohka pilot. By then the military bases at Kagoshima, Miyazaki, and other areas in southern Kyushu had suffered damage from air raids and were barely functional. They were being used exclusively as staging grounds for kamikaze missions.
I thought I actually saw Instructor Miyabe at Omura, but I don’t remember whether or not we spoke. My memory of those days is hazy like it was all some dream. I do recall that each morning that my name was not on the list of pilots selected for that day’s mission, I felt I had been given an extra day to live.
Fortunately, the war ended before I was ordered to sortie.
How did I feel when the war ended? I was certainly relieved. But at the same time, I felt like I hadn’t made it in time. I felt guilty that I alone had survived and that I couldn’t ever face my many friends who hadn’t.
Those feelings never faded—they still haven’t, even now.
Silence reigned over us. Cicadas buzzed in the distance.
“Whoever invented the Ohka was a monster!” Keiko said in a tear-choked voice.
Okabe nodded deeply. “Part of the base at Konoike where we trained is now a memorial park, Kashima Ohka Park. They say there’s even a real one on display there. But I never want to see another Ohka as long as I live.”
“I can understand that,” I said.
“But about ten years ago I saw one by accident. On a trip to America, I saw one on display at the Smithsonian. It was suspended from the ceiling. I remember being stunned to see just how small it was. What was even more shocking was to see what they called it. Do you know what they called it? The ‘Baka’ Bomb.”
“ ‘Baka’ Bomb?” my sister parroted.
“Yes, the Idiot Bomb. Even though my son and his wife were standing right next to me, I wept out loud. I was so mortified, so miserable… No matter how long I cried, the tears just wouldn’t stop. But in fact, ‘idiot’ was the perfect term. The kamikaze tactic cooked up by the insane Japanese military was truly the most idiotic battle plan in the history of the world. That wasn’t the only reason for my tears, though. I just felt so sorry, so very sorry for Takahashi and all the others who had died in such an idiotic operation.”
Okabe’s face suddenly crumpled, and tears spilled from his eyes. His vexation and regret began to affect me. I was pretty shocked by “baka” too, as if they were putting down my grandfather as an idiot.
“Over 150 Ohka pilots died as part of the Divine Thunder Unit, formed around the Ohkas, and a total of 800 men for the unit as a whole. The crew of the Type 1 bombers that ferried the Ohkas are included in that number.”
“So the mother planes were shot down too?”
“Exactly,” Okabe replied. “An Ohka weighed two tons. With that kind of freight the Type 1 planes flied so slowly that they were practically asking to be shot down. The Ohka’s range was at best 30 kilometers, and there wasn’t one chance in a hundred for the mother planes to break through the enemy’s line of interceptors to within 30 kilometers of their warships. Whoever invented the Ohka was totally ignorant of the realities of aerial warfare.
“The first Ohka attack was launched in March of ’45 with eighteen Type 1 bombers hauling fifteen Ohkas, and every last aircraft was shot down by American fighters. The leader of the Divine Thunder Unit, Lieutenant Commander Goro Nonaka, thoroughly opposed such an imprudent operation, but his superior, Admiral Matome Ugaki, overruled him. Lieutenant Commander Nonaka then asked for a fighter escort of seventy Zeros, but was only allotted thirty. He couldn’t bring himself to send off his subordinates alone on a mission that was nearly impossible to survive, so he led the formation himself.”
“Ahhh,” my sister voiced.
“Everyone who knew Lt. Cdr. Nonaka has said that he was a truly wonderful superior. He was a big-hearted man who cared very much for his troops and liked to say, ‘C’mon guys, let’s give ‘r a go!’ His unit was referred to as the Nonaka Family, and his men loved him like he was their daddy.”
“He sounds like an extraordinary person.”
“Given his position he didn’t need to sortie. He participated in that mission because he couldn’t stand by idly as his men went to their deaths, but possibly also to impress upon his superiors that it was an idiotic idea.”
“He was a true officer.”
Okabe nodded. “But even though the Nonaka Family was utterly wiped out, the Divide Thunder Unit sortied with Ohkas many more times after that. As could be expected, almost none of them ever managed to reach the enemy ships and were shot down along with their mother planes. And thus the unit saw a staggering eight hundred casualties.”
Silence reigned among the three of us again. After a while, Keiko said, “Okabe-san, how were you able to accept being in a special attack unit?”
“What do you mean by ‘accept’?”
“How were you able to accept your own death, in the context of a special attack?”
“That’s a tough question.” Okabe folded his arms.
“I think it’s impossible to accept one’s death in the absence of some sublime purpose that transcends it. Okabe-san, what was that sublime purpose in your case?”
Keiko’s question was unexpected. It might have been something she’d prepared in advance.
Okabe was silent for a while, but he finally opened his mouth. “This might sound like I am just trying to put up a good front, but I thought that I would gladly offer up my life if my dying could protect my family.”
“Did you really think that by dying you could keep your family safe?”
Okabe stared at Keiko. “Are you trying to say that the kamikazes died in vain?”
“Not at all,” Keiko said, shaking her head hastily.
“Okay, then may I change the subject somewhat?” he asked.
“Please do, sir.”
“America is a free country that values the lives of its citizens more than any other nation. Yet the same America fought against Nazi Germany in World War II in order to protect that freedom. In 1943, B-17 bombers were deployed numerous times to bomb the Germans’ war plants, in broad daylight with no fighter escort. They didn’t have a fighter escort because back then America didn’t have fighters capable of flying such long distances. And they carried out the raid in broad daylight because they wouldn’t be able to sight the plants at night.”
“I follow you, sir.”