TO Admiral Toyoda and the Imperial High Command the Tan Operation was the big stake. If these twenty-four bombers could stop the Allied carrier fleet, the war could be turned around.
From the vantage point of history, it seems incredible that the Japanese could really have believed twenty-four airplane bombs could change the course of the war. Even the modern Japanese might have difficulty with the concept.
But Imperial General Headquarters had so far isolated itself from reality that the concept was quite acceptable. The only new idea the Japanese military had advanced since the beginning of the Pacific war was the Kamikaze concept. As for the rest:
From the beginning Admiral Yamamoto had held that only through
The Hope that Failed
one victorious battle could Japan achieve an honorable peace. He knew that a war of attrition would mean Japanese defeat.
After Yamamoto’s death his concept gained a life of its own. Yamamoto’s successor, Admiral Koga, had nothing to add. He was content to carry out the Yamamoto policy but so timidly that he failed. After Koga’s accidental death, Admiral Toyoda showed little more originality. He simply expanded the concept to a total land- sea-air battle but was so inept in execution that the Sho Operation became the greatest naval slaughter in history.
Even so late as the winter of 1945 the Japanese high command still had no real concept of the extent of American military might. They had learned, within the past three months, how many kinds of carriers the Americans had, but they could not believe the enemy could take the loss of half a dozen carriers in one day and still prosecute the war without a halt.
Yet that was the actuality. Certainly at the outset of the Pacific war the loss of six carriers would have been a disaster to the fleet. Depending on the date, it might have meant the entire American carrier fleet. But this no longer held true. Carriers were coming off the ways and out of the fitting yards so fast that the navy was hard pressed to man them. At this stage of the war the Americans could have accepted a loss of six carriers with equanimity, particularly since the British were sending a task force to join the Pacific war. They would have liked to send more, but they were not actually needed, and King and Nimitz did not want them.
Given the Japanese point of view, and given the preoccupation with stopping the B-29s, one can see how the Imperial General Staff could mesmerize itself. Most of the high officers truly believed the propaganda line they had developed over twenty years: that twentieth-century Japan was the reincarnation of Yamato; that the modern Japanese sailor and soldier were reincarnations of the old samurai; that the holy spirit of bushido could conquer materialism.
For a nation whose people basically did not question the claim that the Emperor was truly a god in human guise, this concept is not farfetched. Once the belief that spirit could overcome material
The Kamikazes
power was accepted, anything became possible. Thus, no one smiled when Admiral Toyoda said that twenty-four brave young men flying twenty-four suicide bombers could change the fate of the world. And so the Tan mission preoccupied Admiral Toyoda.
ON February 10 Admiral Toyoda was ready. He ordered the submarine command to send an I-boat out to scout the Ulithi base. The submarine was to back up the Fourth Fleet’s aerial scouting out of Truk. The weather had been so spotty that it was hard to keep track of the Allied base.
By the end of the first week in March, the Americans had occupied the airfields of Iwo Jima, which meant that land-based aircraft could begin operation. That freed the carrier fleet, and the carriers moved off.
Admiral Toyoda ordered the Azuza Special Attack Unit to prepare for attack day, which was set as March 10. Japanese naval intelligence assumed the Americans were returning to their forward base at Ulithi to replenish arms and men.
Admiral Toyoda then ordered aerial surveillance of Ulithi from the Fourth Fleet at Truk. On March 7 various reports indicated that the Allied carriers had abandoned their idea of returning to base. The alert was called off.
On March 9 a scout plane out of Truk reported that the carriers had indeed entered Ulithi harbor. The pilot counted five fleet carriers, thfee light carriers and seven escort carriers in the inner anchorage, plus eight other warships, thirty-one flying boats and fifty-four transports. Outside he had seen four other carriers and a group of destroyers entering the lagoon.
The prize was certainly worth the contest. So the raid was back on for the morning of March 10.
On the night of March 9, the weather was blowing up when Admiral Ugaki left his headquarters. By 3:00 A.M. it had sufficiently improved that one of the flying boats of the assisting squadron could leave to reconnoiter the weather along the flight route and send back a steady stream of reports.
The Hope that Failed
At 4:30 A.M. four planes set off to patrol ahead of the main force. At 5:45 A.M. Admiral Ugaki was up and on his way into the operations office. On his desk he found a special message from Admiral Toyoda for the Azuza Special Attack Unit.
The fliers were already up and prepared for their last day on earth. They had breakfast and then assembled in their uniforms and hachimakis. Admiral Ugaki’s staff brought out the special sake the Emperor provided for these occasions. Ceremonially they all drank and Admiral Ugaki read the message of encouragement and inspiration from the commander of the Combined Fleet that was no more.
By order of the Commander of the Combined Fleet, based on authoritative reports, the Azuza Special Attack Unit will sortie today as according to previous instructions.
The war situation grows daily more serious as the enemy B-29s raid the homeland.
The enemy carrier force has twice struck the Kanto Plain without our being able to stop them.
On Iwo Jima our comrades at arms are engaged in deadly battle, day and night, under conditions that indicate they will fight to the death.
The Empire will survive or fall through the success or failure of this endeavor against the American Fifth Fleet.
Let all hands of the Special Attack Unit be diligent and do their very best to annihilate the enemy, the leaders to direct the unit to success, and the subordinates to do their utmost.
You are first in our hearts as we bid farewell to you and you head over the sea in this most difficult expedition. As you reach your destination, you may be assured that your honor and greatness will be remembered. You have proved to be the greatest inspiration and we offer our appreciation as you go.
After a month’s operations, the enemy’s carriers were seen yesterday and should be returning to port. The key to success in your enterprise is secrecy as you struggle to reach your destination in spite of the enormous difficulty with the weather.
As to each unit commander, although success must be cer-
The Kamikazes
tain, if for some reason the plans go askew then we shall do our best to arrange for another attempt.
Finally, remember there is no need for haste.
Let the soul of the Gods be with you this day. We do not have to witness your unselfish loyalty and devotion. The many years of your training have provided a skill that makes it certain you will succeed with the aid of the divine spirit as you go to your eternal rest.
The ceremony finished, Admiral Ugaki looked up. The young men had hung on his every word, and their determination seemed to show clearly in their youthful faces.
There was some delay while photographs were taken. Four flying boats were to set out a little ahead of the twenty-four suicide bombers to guide the planes to Ulithi. There was to be no possibility of a catch caused by the failure of one of the operational pilots in navigation. The flying-boat air crews were skilled in the art.
But when the flying boats began to warm up their engines one boat’s engines coughed and died, and mechanics had to rush out to diagnose and correct the difficulty. That meant more delay.
It was 8:30 A.M. before the Azuza Special Attack force was off the ground, heading south toward Ulithi and death. The planes had hardly left the ground when Admiral Ugaki had another message from Combined Fleet to recall the mission. A new scouting report indicated that the carrier forces had disappeared from Ulithi. Only a handful of ships were in the harbor, and only one carrier.
So everybody had to be called back; the weather plane that was already far to the south, the forward patrol, the four flying boats out front, and last and most traumatic, the twenty-four pilots who had already moved out of the land of the living into the limbo of the almost-lost.
Suddenly they were yanked back down to earth, and it would all have to be done over again. The misery on those young faces was a phenomenon that had already appeared scores of times in the last few months as missions had been scrubbed for one reason or another. When the Azuza Special Attack Unit pilots returned
The Hope that Failed
to earth for this short visit, their frustration was multiplied by a new report that there had indeed been carriers at Ulithi on March 10—fifteen in all—plus scores of other ships.
It had to be done again the next morning, with much less ceremony. The weather report for Kyushu was fine, and apparently it was also satisfactory in the south. But when the mission set out on March 11, again there were delays. The flying boats were slow to get off again. Finally, the whole group met over Cape Sata and the flying boats led the way south.
But halfway down, the weather began to act up again. Rain squalls developed and the planes had to climb above the heavy weather, which meant using precious fuel.
Then the results of war weariness began to show. One by one planes began to drop out of the formation. Engine trouble was the reason but it might not have been the only one. That was a matter that was not to be discussed. Eleven of these planes managed to land on Japanese-held islands on the way down. Two were ditched at sea.
The attack force was now down to eleven planes, hardly enough to win the war for Admiral Toyoda. But they went on.
It was late afternoon before the suicide bombers approached the Ulithi atoll, but they could not see the target below. They had to go down through the soup, and when they got down below the overcast they saw nothing but miles of endless sea. After much circling and searching at around six-thirty that evening the guide planes found that they were near Yap, so now the bombers could orient themselves for the relatively brief flight to Ulithi and glory. The flying boats then turned for home.
The Ginga pilots flew on and shortly before 7:00 P.M. approached Ulithi. It was already dark and the lights were on in the anchorage.
All that Admirals Toyoda and Ugaki had hoped for had come to pass for the eleven planes. The carriers were in the harbor, and the Japanese had the advantage of total surprise. But they did not profit from it.
The basic problem was one that was never given adequate con-
The Kamikazes
sideration. Instead of flying 1,350 miles in a straight line, they had flown perhaps a third farther because of winds and the necessity of avoiding bad weather. Then for precious minutes they had been lost, which wasted more fuel.
When they arrived in the darkness, Ulithi harbor lay spread out below them like a bomber pilot’s dream. The whole place was lit up for the work of repairing ships, a labor which went on day and night. The carriers and other warships were arranged neatly at their moorings. Security was virtually nonexistent.
On American ships outside the combat zone, early evening meant movies, and on most of the vessels in the harbor the movies were playing. Virtually no one was on watch.
Just after 7:00 P.M. the first Ginga pilot peeled off and sent his plane screaming down onto the carrier Randolph. The plane struck and interrupted the movies. The bomb exploded, and did some damage, but not a great deal. There was so little fuel left in its tanks that it did not even explode.
The other bombers came down, and that is all that can be said of them. Most of them ran out of gas and crashed into the sea. Some were shot down. None managed to do any more damage.
The total damage was so slight, and the attack so lightly regarded, that in his account of United States Naval Operations in World War II, official historian Samuel Eliot Morison did not even
i
mention the Tan Operation or the events of the night of March 10, 1945.
CHAPTER TWENTY