Inferno - Max Hastings [404]
Most were merely distressed. One young trainee mused grimly as his country’s plight became plain: “Now the wholesale attack by the enemy with enormous material superiority begins. The last katastropische stage described in All Quiet on the Western Front is soon to approach.” Likewise, a twenty-year-old bomber pilot, Norimitsu Takushima, wrote in his diary: “Today the Japanese people are not allowed freedom of speech and we cannot publicly express our criticism … The Japanese people do not even have access to enough information to know the facts … This is just one example of the routines and demagoguery that have become the moving forces of our society … We are going to meet our fate led by the cold will of the government. I shall not lose my passion and hope until the end … There is one ideal—freedom.” On 9 April 1945, Takushima’s plane vanished on an operation.
Yet some such young men professed that they went willingly: Lt. Kanno Naoishi, regarded by his peers as one of Japan’s most colourful fighter pilots, had rammed a B-24 and escaped with his life, but did not expect to survive for much longer. Airmen travelled between postings with a small bag of personal effects, containing things like chart pencils and underwear, bearing their names; his was jauntily inscribed “personal effects of the late Lt. Cmdr. Kanno Naoishi,” for he assumed his own death and the consequent posthumous promotion granted to every flier who fell. In one of innumerable last letters left behind by kamikazes for their families, Hayashi Ichizo wrote in April 1945: “Mother, I am a man. All men born in Japan are destined to die fighting for the country. You have done a splendid job raising me to become an honourable man. I will do a splendid job sinking an enemy aircraft carrier. Do brag about me.” Ichizo died off Okinawa on 12 April 1945, aged twenty-three. Nakao Takenonori wrote likewise to his parents on 28 April: “The other day I paid my visit to Kotohira Shrine and had a picture taken. I told them to send the finished photo to you. Just in case, I enclose the receipt … Please do not get discouraged, and fight to defeat America and Britain. Please say the same to Grandmother. I will leave behind my diary. Although I did not do much in my life, I am content that I fulfilled my wish to live a pure life, leaving nothing ugly behind me … I wish to express my thanks to my uncle and many other people … Wishing you the best for your future.”
The U.S. Navy found the experience of combating the kamikazes among the bloodiest and most painful of its war. Japanese airmen carried out almost 1,700 sorties to Okinawa between 11 March and the end of June 1945. Day after day, ships’ crews manned their guns to sustain barrages against diving, twisting attackers. Most of the pilots perished under the American fire, but a few always got through to immolate themselves on the flight decks and superstructures of the warships, with devastating effect as gasoline ignited, munitions exploded and sailors protected only by antiflash hoods and gauntlets found themselves caught in blazing infernos. On 12 April, almost all of 185 attackers were destroyed—but the Americans lost 2 ships sunk and 14 damaged, including 2 battleships. On the sixteenth, the carrier Intrepid was hit. On 4 May, 5 ships were sunk and 11 damaged. Between the eleventh and the fourteenth, 3 flagships were badly