Chapter 1088: Different Ideologies

A U.S. Navy bomber aimed at the Japanese battleship below, which was weaving left and right to dodge the attack. It dove sharply, releasing the bomb slung under its belly at a safe altitude.

The Japanese warship it was targeting, long and massive, was clearly moving at high speed. It was desperately turning its rudder to port, trying to avoid the torpedoes dropped by the American torpedo bombers. In truth, warships at sea are far more agile than one might imagine. Even the largest battleships can perform a series of astonishing evasive maneuvers at high speed.

Coupled with their own anti-aircraft weapons, these warships were not in dire straits when facing a small number of planes. As long as they could disrupt the planes’ attack rhythm with their anti-aircraft fire, they could then calmly use changes in speed and turns to dodge the enemy’s attack. Unfortunately, the number of American planes this Japanese warship was facing was simply too great. As it dodged, it was being hit again and again.

The bomb, dropped by the American bomber, followed its proper parabolic arc and plunged down, slamming into the sea near the warship’s bow. A massive explosion erupted near the ship’s anchor machinery. Several of the small-caliber anti-aircraft guns that had been added, along with the nearby sailors, were blown into the sea by the blast.

“The battleship Haruna has been hit! There are too many American planes!” a naval officer shouted, lowering his binoculars to report to the Vangard Fleet commander, Kurita Takeo, who was on the Kongō. At this moment, Kurita had no time to worry about the Haruna. His flagship, the Kongō, was also turning sharply, trying to shake off the American planes.

“Bakayaro! What the hell is the carrier fleet doing? How are our planes getting fewer and fewer?” Ever since the Battle of Pearl Harbor, Japanese naval officers had universally contracted a kind of mania. They would invariably shout “Bakayaro!” before saying what they had to say. This violent symptom was the sort that might appear after being stuck in traffic or losing twenty games in a row, and it manifested in various forms.

The number of Japanese planes that had arrived early to cover Kurita Takeo’s battleship assault force was not small; a full 35 Zero fighters had looked like a massive swarm. But under the onslaught of dozens of American fighters, these new pilots of the Japanese naval air arm were gradually falling into a disadvantage.

Combat is often like this. Soldiers who can still put up a fight when the odds are even will often be unable to display even a tenth of their usual skill when they are routed. And so these Japanese pilots were being slaughtered by their American counterparts, throwing down their helmets and armor. Just surviving had become a problem.

By the time a large number of American carrier planes had arrived and had begun to attack the Japanese battleship force that was desperately pushing forward, Kurita Takeo’s day had begun to get worse. His fleet was forced to make frequent turns, and the time it would take to get within firing range was growing longer and longer.

“A message from the carrier fleet. The second wave of covering Zero fighters has taken off. They’re telling us to hold on for another ten minutes,” the adjutant reported, relaying the telegram he had just received from the radio room. Koga Mineichi had told them to hold on for twenty minutes, but so as not to make Kurita fly into a rage, he had taken it upon himself to shorten the time.

“Ten minutes? In ten minutes, the Haruna might be sunk! A thousand warriors of the Great Japanese Empire will have died here! Baka! Baka! Baka! Send a message to Commander Koga Mineichi! Tell him our speed is being held down by the Americans! Tell him to think of something else!”

The American aircraft carriers were not just sitting there, waiting for the Japanese battleships to get close. They were also moving, and at a considerable speed. In this situation, for the fleet to have to dodge American planes while also trying to close the distance was almost an impossible task. Kurita Takeo could only hope that his carrier planes could drive off the American aircraft, allowing him to resume his high-speed dash.

Two minutes later, the Japanese vanguard fleet turned once again. This time, the turn brought their bows pointing directly at the American fleet. Then these warships, like rhinos, in the brief lull as the American planes returned to rearm, began to charge at full speed in the direction of the U.S. fleet.

To try and disengage now was impossible. Their only hope of survival was pinned on defeating the American fleet. So the Japanese vanguard—the attack fleet composed of battleships and heavy cruisers—could only, in accordance with the pre-arranged plan, launch a desperate attack.

And not far behind them, Japanese fighters were also taking off from their own aircraft carriers, one after another, to counter the ever-increasing number of American fighters. Koga Mineichi was now pinning all his hopes on his suicide planes, hoping these aircraft could help the Japanese army change the tide of the battle.

“Tell Kurita he must not, under any circumstances, abandon the original plan! The Americans are also suffering losses! That is certain. Right now, this is a contest of courage and perseverance. In that regard, the soldiers of the Great Japanese Empire cannot possibly lose!” Koga Mineichi stood on the bridge, watching the fighters take off from the distant carriers, not knowing if he was reassuring himself or Kurita. “Our planes are attacking the American fleet! Tell him to hold on for me!”

And on the deck of the carrier Shōkaku, the scene from just a moment ago was replaying. A new row of Japanese pilots, with white headbands tied on their foreheads, under the gaze of their officer, raised the sake cups that had been filled… In front of them, a photographer also stood, holding his camera to take one last photo of them before their departure.

The same speech from the officer, the same shouts of “Banzai!”, the same downing of the sake, and the same difficult climb into their planes, to go and die with the American sailors, with whom they had no quarrel. They were all anesthetized by the atmosphere, the slogans, and the alcohol, their fanaticism, resentment, and emptiness driving them down the road of no return that had been chosen for them long ago by their officers.

The one after another of pale shouts of “Long live His Majesty the Emperor!” on the deck was swallowed by the roar of the aircraft engines. Their homeland and their Emperor, which they were shouting for, who knew if they were truly more important in their hearts than their mothers and their wives. In this era, there was no such high-tech product as a black box. If there had been, perhaps one could have tried to find out if, at the moment they were shot down or crashed into an American warship, what they had shouted was really the grand line, “For His Majesty the Emperor!”

In the end, the photos they left behind were of youthful faces, and the last letters they left to the world were filled not with the words they truly wanted to leave, but with official slogans. The cups they had used to drink their sake were the same ones left behind by the last batch of suicides. They didn’t even have parachutes as they climbed into the planes, which were only half-filled with fuel.

In any case, this “black technology” that the Japanese had come up with in their desperation, the “Cherry Blossom” (Sakura) suicide plane, was much stronger than the dog-bombs that the Soviets had played with. At the very least, a bomb controlled by a human was much more accurate than a bomb controlled by a dog, and in terms of demonstrating human courage and desperation, it was also more convincing.

When the first wave of Japanese suicide planes flew over the American fleet, they were indeed intercepted by multiple layers of the American fleet and its aircraft. These novice Japanese pilots, who had not been through any dogfight training, were few in number who had luckily escaped the pursuit of the American fighters.

Of the 40 Zero and “Kate” modified suicide planes, less than half, 17, broke through the American fighter screen. Another dozen or so were instantly engulfed in the dense American anti-aircraft fire.

Of the planes that had, with great difficulty, dodged the American navy’s anti-aircraft screen, one, due to its limited skill, had plunged into the sea not far from the side of an American warship, and had instantly broken its wings and had sunk to the bottom. Another two had overshot the American warship and had been shot down by the American anti-aircraft guns on the other side.

Only two planes had struck their targets, but they had immediately made the Americans pay the heavy price of one cruiser and one destroyer, both seriously damaged. These modified planes carried more explosives, which meant they could cause greater damage upon impact. The U.S. Navy, having gotten a taste of this “era-transcending” guided weapon, had for a time no good way to counter this frantic and gaudy “Japanese Cherry Blossom.”

“Damn it! Don’t these Japanese lunatics ever think about their own lives?” an American cruiser captain, standing on his own bridge, had seen through his binoculars the Japanese plane that had crashed into the bridge of an American warship and had exploded into a ball of fire. He complained with a frown.

“You haven’t seen how terrifying these damn Japanese are. I’ve heard from the Marines that after they’ve run out of bullets, they just kill themselves with hand grenades or bayonets,” his adjutant, who was standing beside him, sneered. When he brought up these things, the expression on his face was as if he had just eaten a cockroach. “I hear this group of people doesn’t even know what surrender is. Even when they’re starving and only have half a life left, they’ll still hold a bayonet and shout as they fight us to the death.”

These things, for the Japanese, seemed to be commonplace, but for the Americans, they were a terrifying thing to be concerned about. In the American military, surrender was sometimes an understandable matter. This was a fundamental difference from the “sacrifice one’s life for righteousness” that was advocated in most parts of Asia.

“Strengthen the air defenses! I don’t want to get hit by one of those!” After a long silence, this captain finally squeezed out this one sentence.

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