worsening, however, a new policy to draft students was introduced in the Fall of 1943 to compensate for critical manpower shortages at the front.
Students were considered society’s elite, but thoughts of a bright and prosperous future were abruptly cut short for many when they were press ganged into service midway through their studies. A significant number received no more than a few dozen hours of flight training. Some did not even make 20 hours, so only had a rudimentary understanding of flying before being sent to their deaths in one-way suicide sorties.
They wrote long wills and letters to their loved ones. They mentioned the pain they felt about having to die so young, their philosophy of death, their love of family members, girlfriends and wives, and sometimes included private criticisms of the war and its leaders. Many such records were published in a well-known book titled Kike Wadatsumi no Koe (Listen to Voices from the Sea). Their moving letters left a deep impression on both Japanese and Western readers. Compared to this and similar books about the Kamikaze tragedy, however, readers will notice a different tone in this volume.
Kazuo Odachi and his comrades enlisted in the Yokaren in their mid-teens, fully aware that their chosen vocation was risky. The Yokaren was the much-lauded Japanese Naval Preparatory Flight Training Program for boys aged 15 to 17. Cadets were originally educated in a three-year preliminary course followed by one-year flight training, but this was considerably expedited by the time Odachi was admitted towards the end of the war.
Compared to student draftees, Yokaren graduates were highly skilled professional airmen. Their training was rigorous, and they were experienced in actual combat with the enemy before the Kamikaze strategy was devised. When they ‘volunteered’ for Kamikaze missions, their designated targets were enemy fleet ships, especially the biggest prize of them all aircraft carriers. To make the most of their expertise and machines, they had the option of returning to base if engine trouble occurred, the weather turned bad, or a suitable target was not located. Although each mission was embarked on as the last, this is how Odachi miraculously survived seven intended suicide sorties.
Odachi and the other battle-hardened airmen never wrote wills or sent letters back home before their final mission. They had long been mentally prepared to die in the course of duty. In this sense, therefore, there were two kinds of Kamikaze attackers: professional pilots, and amateur draftees. Odachi belonged to the former. That is not to say, however, that the sacrifice of one was greater than the other. Nevertheless, attitudes and expectations were different, and Odachi was one of only a small handful of his peers who came back from the war. That is why his story is unique.
CHAPTER ONE
Kendo and the Yokaren
LEADER OF THE PACK
I was born on December 11, 1926, and raised in a little country village called Kitano Kotesashi in Saitama Prefecture, not too far from Tokyo. I am the second son with three brothers and two sisters. We lived in a big house separated from our neighbors by eight zelkova trees and sheltered by oaks to the south.
My family name, Odachi, literally means “big house.” My ancestors can be traced back to the Nitta-Genji clan, a prominent aristocratic warrior family of a thousand years ago. At the end of the twelfth century, a Genji general by the name of Minamoto Yoritomo established Japan’s first military government, the Kamakura shogunate. In the fourteenth century, vassals of the Kamakura shogunate enacted a coup d’état to topple the military government and my Odachi ancestors joined them.
A new Muromachi shogunate was subsequently established in Kyoto, but the political situation was far from stable. A split soon formed in the imperial court, and for many decades in the fourteenth century, a northern and a southern court coexisted. The Odachi clan supported the southern court and were thus shunned by the Muromachi shogunate which established the northern court. Eventually the northern court became recognized as the sole imperial authority, and supporters of the defunct southern court were forced to scatter and hide throughout Japan. My ancestors returned to the Kanto plain, and that’s where we remained.
I entered Kotesashi Elementary School in April 1933. It was the only school in the village. It had one first-grade class of around 70 students. We were quintessential hale-and-hearty country kids. The younger ones were looked after by the seniors, and we all played together in the fields and at the village shrine every day. Before I took up the traditional martial art of Kendo, I filled my days playing war games or hunting sparrows with the others.
The so-called “bosses” of children gangs were usually fifth or sixth graders. This lofty mantle of authority was bestowed upon me in the sixth grade. After school, I would direct my tribe of urchins to gather at a designated time and place, such as at the shrine gate. I would rush home, gobble down a snack, and then head to the rendezvous point. Homework was never a priority. I called the shots and all the boys in my posse followed my lead. Each tribe had its own patch of turf and gang scuffles were not an uncommon occurrence.
Mr. Kuroda and Kendo
I remember Japan gearing up for war in my childhood days. Physical training started to take precedence over academic classes in schools. I excelled in physical education classes and enjoyed competing. I also joined the village’s newly-formed bugle group. Our main task was to regale young men of the village with patriotic compositions at the local train station as they departed for the front.
As the world descended into chaos, we kids were more concerned with our own battles. We fought constantly with children from the neighboring village of Yamaguchi. Mr. Kuroda’s house was located between our two villages. Respected by all who met him, he exuded an air of stateliness like a samurai of old. He wore a black jacket with a high collar and loudly recited old poems as he walked to and from school with his characteristic ramrod-straight posture.1
Mr. Kuroda was transferred to our school in 1937 when I was a fifth grader. He was 23 years old at the time and had just graduated from Saitama Prefectural Normal School where he trained as a teacher. He was reputed to be a Kendo practitioner of considerable skill. He told us that the style of Kendo he practiced was related to the Hokushin Itto-ryu, one of the predominant styles of classical swordsmanship during the Edo period (1603-1868). It was under his strict tutelage that I started Kendo.
Kuroda-sensei taught Kendo during physical education classes for which we were required to buy a wooden practice sword. Training was harsh. Although prohibited in Kendo today, foot sweeping and wrestling the opponent to the ground was standard. Kendo is usually practiced in bare feet on polished wooden floors. Our school did not have a martial arts dojo, so at first he took us through sword forms outside. Alas, in the name of tradition he wouldn’t allow us to wear shoes. This resulted in severe grazing of knees and elbows. Torn shirts and bloodied bodies were par for the course. The wounds would become infected because of the grit and sand, and red pee because of the severity of the exercise was not unusual.
My mother was not keen on me continuing, but quitting was not an option. I thrived on the thrill and excitement of it all. In all honesty, I didn’t enjoy being dragged across the ground, but resisting all attempts by Mr. Kuroda to grind me into the dirt made me stronger in body and mind. Before long, he was unable to get the better of me.
Eventually we were allocated a classroom to train in, which required moving the desks and chairs out of the way before each session. It sure beat jumping around barefooted on the gravel in the schoolyard. It wasn’t until we got the protective equipment that Kendo became interesting. The local government gifted 50 sets of Kendo armor to the village. This allowed us to engage in full-contact sparring using bamboo practice swords.
There were seven or eight members in our Kendo club. I outshone all of them. During the day we would practice
