BEFORE dawn on October 17 the American carrier task force began launching planes, and as dawn broke the fighters and bombers began to sweep across the Philippines, concentrating on Japanese air bases. This was Admiral Halsey’s support of Admiral Thomas Kinkaid’s forthcoming amphibious landing at Leyte Gulf.
That morning just after dawn the Japanese lookout post on Suluan island reported sighting a large force of cruisers and destroyers coming up from the south toward Leyte Gulf. These ships were destroyer transports and the light cruisers Denver and Columbia , which had been assigned to capture the islands of Dinagat, Suluan, Calicoan and Homonhon, which separate Leyte Gulf from the Philippine Sea. The transports carried the Sixth Ranger Battalion of the army.
The Kamikazes
The Japanese watched from the tall white lighthouse on the shore. The naval observation post was manned by about a hundred men under a junior officer.
First the Japanese observers watched a group of minesweepers scour the channels. That operation began at 6:30 A.M. and ended an hour and a half later. Then the cruisers moved into position and began firing on the shore. The Denver lay off Suluan and fired a barrage for twenty minutes at the installations on the island. Several shells hit the lighthouse, perched atop a three hundred- foot cliff. The shells smashed the light.
Down on the shore part of the Japanese garrison prepared to do battle with the invaders. All this time the Suluan transmitter was silent. But at the Japanese air base at Mabalacat on Luzon island the operators could tell that the transmitter was still turned on.
At 8:20 the landing craft with the Rangers began to move toward the shore and soon reached Suluan. They stormed ashore and attacked. The Japanese troops on the beach staged a hopeless banzai charge. At the end of it the Rangers counted thirty-two dead Japanese and three American casualties.
None of this information reached Mabalacat. The defenders* radio transmitter had obviously been in the beach area, for in midmorning came another message: Tenno Heika Banzai!
And then the transmitter closed down forever. It did not take the Mabalacat operators long to figure out that the lookout post had been overwhelmed by the enemy, and that the officer and sailors there had chosen “honorable death” rather than surrender.
The surmise was not quite exact. The Rangers did not have time to clear the island, since their presence was needed on Dinagat to quell another garrison. They reembarked in their ships and moved over to Dinagat, while the remainder of the Japanese garrison on Suluan stayed in the lighthouse. For two weeks they held out, until Filipino messengers reached the American troops on the other islands and reported their continued presence. The Americans then organized a new raiding party and the last of the Suluan garrison died as the Rangers blew up their lighthouse.
The Decision to Die
* * *
ON October 17 the American invasion predicted by the Imperial High Command had materialized. Admiral Onishi had eight days to prepare to assist Admiral Toyoda’s surface attack forces with massive air support. Still, he had not secured the cooperation of the army air forces or the acquiescence of Vice Admiral Deshichi Okochi, the overall navy commander in the Philippines, to his own plan. On October 18 that agreement finally came, as the admiral recognized his responsibility to the all-important Sho operation.
But immediately there was a new complication. Admiral Onishi had been hoping for a large contingent of aircraft to be funneled in to the Philippines to augment his First Air Fleet, so badly depleted in the raids of September and early October. Planes were started down, but they encountered the ring of steel the allies had thrown around the Philippines, and they never arrived at the Clark Air Field complex, about fifty miles north of Manila. On October 18 the Americans staged another stunning series of air raids. From dawn until nearly dusk a steady stream of American attackers poured out across the Philippines, smashing the fields.
The operational Japanese planes were scattered from the Manila area down to the southern islands. That day the Americans hit Mabalacat, Aparri and the other strips that were part of the Clark Field complex. Planes from task groups in the south hit the fields on Negros and Cebu. The fighters came down first and buzzed the airfields, spraying the runways and revetments with machine-gun fire. Then came the dive bombers with their 250-kilogram (550- pound) bombs that blasted the buildings and clusters of planes. Finally came the torpedo bombers with their one thousand- and two thousand-pound bombs to destroy any large buildings and supply dumps they could find.
After a hard day Admiral Onishi ordered a count of the aircraft left operational. The figure was less than a hundred. The greatest concentration of these, about a quarter of the total, was located at Mabalacat airfield, where the 201st Air Group was stationed.
The Kamikazes
That night Admiral Onishi sent a coded message out to the units under his command, announcing the beginning of the Sho Operation, and calling on the commanders of all units for support plans. He sent a special message to Captain Sakai Yamamoto, commander of the 201st, whom he had known for many years and who shared his views on air tactics. Captain Yamamoto and his operations officer, Commander Tadashi Nakajima, were to fly to Manila and report to headquarters at 1:00 P.M. the next day, October 19.
The officers lived in a pleasant two-story house that belonged to a Filipino family that had been relegated to the back of the house. The upper floor served as sleeping rooms for the officers and guests, as did most of the lower floor, except for a single room that had been turned into the orderly room of the 201st Air Group. The enlisted men lived in ruder accommodations within the compound. Their barracks had been bombed.
A few rods away, a windblown, dusty tent on the edge of the airfield served as operations office. The aircraft were scattered around the area, as far away as half a mile, taking advantage of natural cover, protected by earth and sandbag revetments, and then camouflaged. To attract the enemy planes coming in to attack, the airmen had constructed dummy aircraft, cunningly made of bamboo and paper, to resemble Zero fighters and bombers.
On the morning of October 19 Captain Yamamoto arose before dawn and went down to the orderly room to begin work. Commander Nakajima joined him. Soon they were deep in discussion of the best way to use their aircraft to attack the American invasion forces. The problem was a poser: a Zero was a fighter plane and what were needed were attack bombers. To be sure, during the South Pacific campaign, some Zeroes had been fitted with wing racks which enabled them to carry small bombs, and they had made some attacks against American airfields in the Russell Islands and at Guadalcanal. But these had not been startingly successful. Besides, with the Type 99 bombers in greater production the need had never been perceived as very great. But since the defeat in the South Pacific, and particularly after the fall of Saipan, Japanese
The Decision to Die
aircraft production had been turned around, and the emphasis was on fighter planes to counter the American carrier attacks and the B-29s which had begun to appear over Japan in numbers. At Mabalacat on this day, the captain and the commander had to figure out how to use those fighters effectively to stop the big ships.
As day began to break an enlisted man hurried into the orderly room with the admiral’s radio message. Captain Yamamoto scanned it and told Commander Nakajima to get ready to go to Manila. They were to be in the admiral’s office at one o’clock that afternoon for a meeting.
As the sun came up the air-raid alarm began to sound, and in a few moments a wave of American naval fighters swept across the field, guns spitting. The handful of planes brought to the airstrip for the morning flight was destroyed as the fighters and bombers came back again and again. Only a few planes managed to get off the ground and they accomplished virtually nothing. After the American raids ended, Commander Nakajima did manage to send off one flight in the early afternoon. Not until then could he get away from duty to make the Manila trip.
There were no two-seater planes left operational that day nor was it safe to be in the air, so Captain Yamamoto elected to drive to Manila headquarters, late as they were. Driving itself, even the fifty-mile run, was a dangerous adventure. The countryside was teeming with guerrillas who liked nothing better than to attack a Japanese vehicle on a lonely stretch of road. This lack of control so near the capital was an indication of the tenor of the Pacific War at this stage.
Captain Yamamoto and Commander Nakajima were lucky that day, however, and they made Manila in two and a half hours without incident. But when they arrived their bird was flown, back down to Mabalacat. Admiral Onishi was so itchy that he had decided not to wait, but to go to the headquarters of the 201st Air Group himself. That organization was then the best in the Japanese naval air force outside the homeland. Perhaps it was the best outfit in the whole service.
The Kamikazes
The 201st boasted an impressive record in the Pacific War. The organization had been formed on December 1, 1942, in anticipation of the coming expansion of the war. The Chitose Air Group had been combined at Majuro with the 752nd Fighter Squadron and the Eleventh Bombardment Squadron to create the 201st group.
In February 1943, the group had trained at the Matsushima Air Base in Japan, then was sent to Attu island for operations. In July 1943, the air group moved south to reinforce the naval air forces operating out of Rabaul. From Buin the 201st was engaged in the fierce air battles for control of the South Pacific and suffered many losses. But by the end of July 1943, the pilots of the 201st claimed to have shot down 450 allied planes in half a year.
From that point on the history of the 201st was largely a history of the growing desperation of the Japanese air forces. One loss followed another. The fliers fought at Saipan and at Peleliu. During the battle for Saipan they were the first to adopt the ramming technique against B-24 bombers. It was their remarkable performance that finally convinced Admiral Onishi that the suicide attack was the only solution to the growing superiority of the Americans.
After the disaster at Saipan, in which most of the pilots of the 201st Air Group fell, Captain Yamamoto had taken command of the group and brought it to the Philippines for rebuilding. He had done a remarkable job in spite of the great difficulties.
The worst of these problems were caused by almost continual operations against the overwhelming power of the American carrier fleet. Since Saipan the losses had been worse, and although the navy had kept funneling planes down to the Philippines, the supply could not keep up with the demand.
Originally the unit had been based on Cebu, but with the false report of Allied landings at Davao on September 10, all naval aviation units had been summoned to the Clark Field complex.
Once the report of invasion proved false, some parts of the 201st were again moved around but headquarters was retained at Ma- balacat.
Recent losses had been enormous. On September 12 the 201st
The Decision to Die
was operating about a hundred planes at Makutan. The American carriers attacked and destroyed forty-three planes on the ground. Another twenty-three were shot down in action. Fourteen pilots were wounded but managed to land or crash-land their planes.
The next day another three hundred allied planes attacked Cebu and Legaspi and caused even more damage. The 201st managed to get twenty fighters into the air. Ten of them did not return. By October 15, at Mabalacat, Captain Yamamoto had only twenty- five Zeros left operable.
Nevertheless the 201st Air Group’s morale was remarkably high. Admiral Onishi knew the group for its “overwhelming strength of martial spirit. ’’ That was all he needed to launch his radical program of suicide as military policy. He could take no chance that his initial effort would fail. On its success rode Onishi’s only hope.
Small wonder, then, that when Captain Yamamoto and Commander Nakajima did not arrive by mid-afternoon Admiral Onishi had set out for Mabalacat. He had six days to produce a miracle that would stop the American carriers.
Onishi arrived at Mabalacat late in the afternoon as the plane handlers were moving the remaining Zero fighters into revetments for the night and adjusting the camouflage. A handful of men moved around the field in the hope of salvaging some of the planes that had been destroyed. The admiral’s arrival was observed by Commander Rikihei Inoguchi and Commander Asaichi Tamai, who were sitting companionably in the windblown operations tent in desultory discussion of an apparently insolable problem: how to fight a powerful enemy with blunted weapons. So difficult was the problem, as recognized by the staff at Manila, that Commander Inoguchi, a staff officer of the Eleventh Air Fleet, had been sent down to Mabalacat a few days earlier by Admiral Teraoka to get the lay of the land. Commander Tamai was executive officer of the 201st Group, and in the absence of Captain Yamamoto he was temporarily in charge.
The black limousine with its yellow admiral’s banner flying from the front fender pulled up next to the tent and out of the car came
The Kamikazes
the stocky figure of Admiral Onishi, his black cap set at an angle over his black bowl-cut hair. He was dressed in formal uniform and his face was impassive. Behind him walked a single aide.
The two officers leaped to their feet to pay respects to the admiral, but it soon became apparent that he was not there for ceremony. He sat down and inquired as to the whereabouts of Captain Yamamoto and Commander Nakajima. Tamai explained the difficulties of the day: it had been two o’clock before the captain could leave the base for Manila.
The day was ending. Onishi sat for only a few minutes. He was full of the decision that he had made in the previous few days, and was bursting to discuss it. Before he left Manila he had confided to Captain Toshihiko Odawara, his chief of staff, that he wanted that very day to organize a suicide unit, and he had chosen the 201st Group as the most likely to accept the ticklish operation.
After some small talk, and much silence, the admiral suddenly came to a decision. Sunset was at six-thirty that night and the darkness lowered quickly. Why did they not move on to the orderly room in the house, the admiral suggested. He had something of great importance to discuss.
When they arrived at the orderly room a call came in from Captain Yamamoto. He apologized for not being on hand to greet the admiral, but one disaster had followed another. Once he had arrived at Manila and discovered that the mountain had gone to visit Mahomet, Yamamoto had insisted that he and Commander Nakajima find a plane and fly back. With any luck they could beat the admiral to Mabalacat.
But the luck they had was all bad. Commander Nakajima found the plane at Nichols Field, and the captain squeezed into the narrow space behind the pilot’s seat for the twenty-minute flight to Mabalacat. As Nakajima taxied along the airstrip he felt the plane was not responding properly, but there was no time for niceties with the admiral on his way, so they took off in the limping plane. Then Nakajima discovered the wheels would not retract. This cut the air speed, but again there was nothing to be done.
The Decision to Die
As they adjusted to these difficulties, the Zero’s engine suddenly quit as they circled back over Manila Bay. Nakajima tried to restart the engine, but it would not go. They were losing altitude repidly and there was no hope of making it back to Nichols Field. Below a road skirted the shore, but if he missed or the plane skidded and went off on the seaward side, they would plunge into the breakers, not a very pleasant prospect. The other options were the sea or a rice paddy. Nakajima chose a rice paddy on the outskirts of Manila, the plane came wobbling in, almost stalling, the landing gear struck the ground, and broke, and the Zero skidded along for sixty feet before it stopped. Nakajima opened the canopy and got out. He was unhurt, but Captain Yamamoto’s ankle had gotten wedged beneath the seat and was injured so badly he could scarcely hobble.
Commander Nakajima got the captain out of the plane and helped him to the road that ran along the side of the rice paddy. They hailed a passing army truck and ordered the driver to take them back to First Air Fleet headquarters. There they spoke to Captain Odawara, and Captain Yamamoto put in his call to the admiral at Mabalacat. By the time it came through the medics had announced that the ankle was broken and he would have to go to the hospital for treatment.
The admiral, an irascible man, who had been counting on Yamamoto’s influence to persuade the pilots to join the death squad, now saw that there was nothing to be done. It was a very ticklish matter, for if Admiral Onishi failed to convince the officers of the 201st Air Group, and ordered them to form a suicide corps, the reaction in Tokyo must be negative. All depended on persuasion. Onishi wanted to be able to say that the young heroes of Yamato had seen the nation’s danger at this critical moment, and had decided voluntarily that the solution had to come through suicide missions en masse.
Captain Yamamoto said that he had implicit trust in his executive officer, and that any decisions made by Tamai would be as his
own.
The Kamikazes
To Admiral Onishi this was not the most desirable scenario, but there was nothing to be done about it. He put down the telephone and turned to the two Mabalacat officers, then asked Tamai to summon his senior tactical officers.
Tamai sent an orderly for Staff Officer Chuichi Yoshioka of the Twenty-sixth Air Flotilla, and Squadron Leaders Ibusuki and Yo- koyama of the 305th and 306th Fighter Squadrons. Then all six went to a room with a conference table on the second floor of the house overlooking the garden.
Onishi began to speak.
First he told the fliers about the desperation of the military situation, something they had already guessed. They already knew of the Sho Plan, in which Admiral Toyoda and Imperial General Headquarters had opted to throw in the last elements of Japanese naval power in an attempt to stem the allied drive.
He outlined the attack plan and explained the navy air arm’s role in the Philippines. To carry it out, he said, the navy must immobilize the American carriers for one week. If this could not be done, he predicted failure for the Sho Operation, and failure meant a gruesome end to the Japanese fleet.
This much was well known to the officers; they had spent most of the day talking about the problem since Captain Yamamoto had informed them that morning of the Sho Plan activation.
But Admiral Onishi had more to say.
The way to immobilize the carriers was to destroy, even if only temporarily, their flight decks. For months he had made studies of the alternatives to conventional attack. With the American carriers this was easier than one might think; they had wooden decks which were highly susceptible to Fire and explosion. A bomb dropped on the deck of a carrier might prevent it from launching planes for a week if it did no other damage. In the circumstances a week’s immobilization could be enough to let Admiral Kurita’s main force move down through San Bernardino Strait, at the southeast tip of Luzon island, round the shoulder of northeastern Samar and head down to attack the landing force that was standing off the Leyte beaches. Transports, supplies, ammunition and reserve troops put
The Decision to Die
out of action, the army ashore would be stranded, and the Japanese counterattack should eliminate it as an effective fighting force. It would be months before the Americans could pull themselves together to launch another attack.
How, then, could they get those bombs into place?
In his studies the admiral had paid particular attention to the Zero fighter in a new role as bomber. The main reason was that since Tojo had ordered the expansion of the Japanese air arm the factories had concentrated on building fighters. Also, the Zero was fast and maneuverable, and had the greatest chance of getting through the obstacles of fighter cover and intense anti-aircraft fire that was to be expected around the American carriers.
The major limitation of the Zero in this role was its inability to carry a heavy payload and still retain most of its desirable flight characteristics. The maximum bomb size was 250 kilograms.
This was not a very large instrument to use against an aircraft carrier. However, the admiral s studies had shown him that a 250- kilo bomb, properly presented, would do the job. He had made many tests to find this out.
And the best method of presenting the bomb?
First, he said, one had to adopt the skipbombing technique learned from the allies in the South Pacific. This involved flying at wavetop level toward the target, to avoid the American radar. Then, when preparing to attack, the pilot would ascend to gain altitude and the force of gravity, then dive down low over the target and release the bomb at mast level. The bomb would then skip against the side of the ship and blow a hole in it, creating the torpedo implosion effect.
That technique, however, was not completely suitable for carrier attack. Much better to dive steeply toward the deck and then drop the bomb at the last minute on the flight deck.
Both techniques imposed certain disciplines. American antiaircraft guns fired at the rate of six hundred rounds a minute. That meant ten rounds a second.
The Zero fighter, in optimum dive, plunged downward at a velocity of three hundred knots. That meant the plane moved at a
The Kamikazes
rate of 150 meters per second. A .Zero.-fighter was twenty meters long. In turn, that meant the Zero was exposed to one enemy round for each fifteen meters of its length. This, according to Admiral Onishi’s calculations, gave the fighter an 80 percent chance of getting through the anti-aircraft fire.
All this was pertinent if the pilot followed directions absolutely, and without error. He must approach at wavetop level to within 200 meters of the carrier, put the plane into a steep climb, and immediately dive, drop the bomb, and jink off on the surface of the sea.
The pilot’s problem was that he must have made all his calculations before his approach, and then had to adjust to changing circumstances to keep these ratios the same.
There were three stages to the attack. The first was to avoid the enemy combat air-patrol planes circling around the carrier. The second was to get through the barrage and attack. The third was to escape. It could be done. Admiral Onishi had worked it all out. In fact, he had assigned a squadron of thirty planes to the skip technique.
Yes, it could be done. But there was a catch. And the catch was that the pilots coming out of the shortened flight school programs did not have the ability to carry out so delicate a mission.
There was also another catch. The 201st Air Group represented the only effective fighting force of the First Air Fleet. Other available planes around the Philippines were in no condition to carry out skipbombing attacks. And the 201st, as they all knew, had that day been reduced to fewer than thirty Zero fighters.
Given the need, and given the facts, what was to be done? The admiral looked around the table at the younger men.
“In my opinion,” he said, “there is only one way of assuring that our meager strength will be effective to a maximum degree. That is to organize suicide attack units of Zero fighters, armed with 250-kilogram bombs, with each plane to crash-dive into the enemy carrier. . . What do you think?”
He looked around the room again.
CHAPTER FIVE