The Twilight Warriors (23 page)

T
he early hours of April 6 were spent off-loading combustible materials and unnecessary stores. The deadline for mail was 1000, and the executive officer urged each officer and man to write a final letter to his family.

In his cramped quarters, Ens. Mitsuru Yoshida struggled to find words for a letter to his parents. He tried to push out of his mind the picture of his mother bent over in grief. Finally he wrote, “Please dispose of my things. Please, everyone, stay well and survive. That is my only prayer.”

One of Yoshida’s friends was Ens. Kunai Nakatami, who was a
nisei
—a Japanese American. Nakatami had been studying in Japan when war broke out. Conscripted into the navy, he was an assistant
communications officer whose job was to interpret American emergency transmissions. Nakatami was a man whose homeland and enemy were the same. Two of his brothers were U.S. soldiers fighting in Europe. Most of his fellow officers aboard
Yamato
despised him for being an American.

Nakatami had just received a letter from his mother, via neutral Switzerland, which only added to his misery. “How are you?” his mother asked. “
We are fine. Please do put your best effort into your duties. And let’s both pray for peace.” Nakatami broke down in tears, certain that he would never be able to reply to his mother’s letter.

Similar scenes were playing out on the nine other ships that would sail with
Yamato
. Aboard
Yahagi
, the cruiser that would lead the attack force into the East China Sea toward Okinawa, Capt. Tameichi Hara wrote a last letter:

In his cabin, the commander of the task force was also writing letters. Vice Adm. Seiichi Ito had been married to his wife, Chitose, for twenty-three years. They had three daughters, two of whom were still teenagers, and a son, a twenty-one-year-old navy pilot based in Kyushu. Ito was inordinately proud of his son, but he also had a father’s gnawing trepidations about what would happen to him. As the aerial offensive shifted more and more to
tokko
tactics, Ito knew that his son would be a prime candidate
for a one-way mission to Okinawa. Like his samurai model, the fourteenth-century general Kusunoki, who faithfully obeyed his emperor’s orders despite the overwhelming certainty of death and defeat, Ito accepted his fate. And by the same reasoning, he could also accept whatever fate awaited his son. It was the way of the warrior.

Later that morning, the executive officer gave the order for fifty-three cadets from the Eta Jima naval academy who had boarded two days earlier to disembark. The cadets were crestfallen. Aware of
Yamato
’s coming mission, several begged the executive officer to be allowed to remain. Nomura shook his head. He understood their sentiments, and he would feel the same way in their position. As untrained officers, they were more hindrance than help in the coming battle. They were Japan’s future skippers, and they should remain ashore.

Bitterly disappointed, the cadets made their way to the destroyer alongside, which would take them ashore. Along with them,
Yamato
’s Captain Ariga ordered another fifteen seriously ill men to disembark, as well as several over the age of forty whose large families would suffer undue hardship.

Standing at the rail of the destroyer, the cadets, most still hung-over from the previous night’s party, rendered a long final salute to
Yamato
.

T
hey were running late. The task force was supposed to be under way at 1500, April 6, but there were delays off-loading nonessential supplies and combustibles. Not until 1524 did the captain give the order, “Unshackle from the buoy. All engines ahead slow.”

A rumble passed through the great ship, and a gray foam boiled up from beneath her stern. Slowly she eased away from her mooring and into the channel to join the waiting formation.
Yamato
and her nine escorts turned their bows southeastward, toward the Bungo Strait, making a speed of 12 knots. In the lead was
Yahagi
,
with a row of destroyers trailing on either side. The flagship
Yamato
was securely positioned in her place of honor in the center.

Twilight was descending over the task force when the executive officer, Capt. Nomura, mustered the crew. The evening breeze swirled over
Yamato
’s bow, ruffling the uniforms of the men assembled on the deck. Against the setting sun, silhouettes of the hills on Kyushu were gliding past
Yamato
’s starboard rail.

Standing atop the number two turret, Nomura read the orders from the task force commander, Vice Admiral Ito: “This task force of the Imperial Navy, in cooperation with the army, is about to stake its entire air, sea, and land might on an all-out attack against enemy ships in the vicinity of Okinawa. The fate of the empire hangs in the balance.”

The crew faced the east, bowed to the emperor, and sang the Japanese anthem, “Kimi Ga Yo.” Then, as one, they shouted,
“Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!”

From across the water, like echoes, came the same shouts from the other ships. It was an emotional moment. The men shook hands and assured each other that the next time they met would be at Yasukuni, the sacred shrine near Tokyo where the spirits of Japanese warriors resided.

Returning to his duty station on the top deck, Lt. Naoyoshi Ishida felt the same emotions, but he had no illusions about what lay ahead. At twenty-eight, Ishida was a decade older than most of the sailors who were cheering a fate they could only dimly imagine. Unlike many of
Yamato
’s junior officers who had been snatched from civilian universities and professional studies and hurriedly trained as officers, Ishida was a professional naval officer who had begun his career before the war.

Ishida’s wife and son were back in Kure. Like most of the ship’s officers, Ishida had been given three days’ leave before
Yamato
’s departure. During his leave, Ishida had purposely not allowed his thoughts to dwell on what lay ahead in the sea off Okinawa. He was a product of his culture and class. A willingness to die in the
service of the emperor was an integral component of his being. The prospect of death in battle had never caused him a moment’s anguish—until his visit with his family was nearly finished.

Darkness had come to Kure when Ishida said his farewell to his family in the doorway of their tiny wood-and-paper home. He felt a pang of grief as he realized that his infant son, whom he had not seen until this visit, would soon be fatherless. He struggled for the words to say farewell to his wife. Even if he had been allowed to reveal the secret that neither he nor
Yamato
would return from the next sortie, he wouldn’t have been able to say it. It would simply have been too difficult for both of them.

He’d kissed his wife, then walked away. After she closed the door, he came back. He walked around the house, taking a last look at the fragile structure. He peered through the window to fix in his memory a last image of the family he would never see again. He said a silent goodbye and made his way to the
Yamato
.

Back aboard the battleship, he wrote a final letter to his parents. It wasn’t difficult. In the traditionally respectful language with which Japanese addressed their elders, he requested their forgiveness for not having said farewell. He asked that they please live long lives. He sealed the envelope, then began writing a letter to his wife. “You can marry again,” he wrote, “but whatever you do, please raise our son to be a good man.”

Ishida laid down his pen, stared at the letter, then tore it up. He tried writing another letter, then tore it up also. He couldn’t do it. Such a letter would cause her too much pain. The image of his beloved wife weeping over the letter would make it harder for him to perform his duties when
Yamato
entered battle.

Forget it
, Ishida decided. There would be no farewell.

17
DIVINE WIND

KANOYA AIR BASE, KYUSHU, JAPAN
APRIL 6, 1945

T
he drums rolled. The
tokko
pilots stood in a long row awaiting their final orders. Each was dressed in a bulky flying suit and helmet, a ceremonial white
hachimaki
headband tied around his head. The first wave would take off at 1320.

As he always did when dispatching young men to their deaths, Vice Adm. Matome Ugaki wore a somber expression. With him was Combined Fleet chief of staff Vice Adm. Ryunosuke Kusaka, both admirals wearing their starched whites, swords, medals, and white gloves. On long tables before them stretched the row of empty cups, the plates of rice wafers.

Ten-Go was the first and most ambitious of the ten planned
kikusui
operations. It would be a mass air attack by both
tokko
aircraft and conventional warplanes, coordinated with the surface attack by the
Yamato
task force. At the same time, General Ushijima’s 32nd Army was supposed to counterattack on Okinawa and retake the airfields at Yontan and Kadena.

Ugaki was skeptical about Ten-Go’s chances for success. Like most Japanese operations, the complex plan depended on precise timing and careful coordination. From experience Ugaki knew how poorly the army and the navy coordinated their operations. He doubted that General Ushijima would seize the moment to regain the lost ground on Okinawa. He was even more pessimistic about
Yamato
’s chance of success. Ugaki, an old battleship sailor, had been opposed to the mission. It was “superficial,” he declared, to regard the battleship as useless.

Ugaki spoke to the assembled pilots. In the same low voice he always used when delivering final orders to the
tokko
warriors, he
told them that this was the first of a series of
kikusui
operations. More than two thousand warplanes were being assembled for the campaign, three-quarters of them dedicated to
tokko
missions. In a succession of blows they would annihilate the American fleet off Okinawa. The enemy would be paralyzed and unable to proceed with their invasion. The noble young
tokko
airmen would be in the vanguard of saving the empire.

They gazed back at him in respectful silence. Whether or not they actually believed him didn’t matter. Questioning such an order was not an option. Nor was reneging on their pledge to die for the emperor.

The cups were filled. Solemnly Ugaki raised his to the assembled pilots. “We shall meet at Minatogawa,” he told them.

They had heard Ugaki make this promise several times now. The
tokko
volunteers who had not yet flown their missions accepted it as an article of faith that the admiral would follow them into death. They would be reunited in spirit at the shrine commemorating the legendary battle of Minatogawa.

The pilots drank from their cups. They saluted Admiral Ugaki, then bowed respectfully. The admiral gave the order to man their planes, and in unison the pilots yelled three
banzai
cheers. The drums beat a steady tattoo while they trotted to the camouflaged revetments where the armed and ready airplanes were concealed.

Minutes later, the stillness at Kanoya was split by the sound of radial engines coughing and rumbling to life. The first group of attack aircraft—fifty-six Zeroes, each laden with a 250-kilogram armor-piercing bomb—appeared from beneath the camouflage nets and lumbered over the uneven ground toward the runway.

It was an emotional moment. Well-wishers, ground crew, and pilots awaiting their own
tokko
missions watched and cheered. One after the other the warplanes throttled up and roared down the patched runway. With them went ten Zero fighter escorts. It was insufficient fighter cover, Ugaki knew, but it was a sign of the times. The ten fighters and their pilots were all that could be
spared. Experienced fighter pilots were in such short supply that their commanders were refusing to send them into hopeless duels with the superior enemy air forces.

When the last of the
tokko
planes had disappeared in the cloudy southern sky, Ugaki returned to his bunker. He settled himself into his command chair and assumed the position that he had adopted since the first
tokko
operations—sitting upright, hands folded in his lap, eyes fixed straight ahead as if he were in a trance. He would remain there until the first reports came back from the battle.

T
he kamikazes were coming. That much U.S. intelligence officers had gleaned from the intercepted Japanese communications. April 6 was supposed to be the day of the greatest massed attack yet staged by the kamikazes.