them here: Takara, you are the acting head of the Tsukiyama family until Father returns. Whatever trials lie ahead, preserve the sword. Impress upon your sons, and their sons, the integrity and purity of the Tsukiyama blood-line. After deification my soul will reside at Yasukuni shrine, with my myriad brothers who also gave their lives to the emperor. Come to pray, bring our sword, and let the light dance on the blade. I shall be waiting.
8th November
Weather: fair, hazy. The maple leaves are flaming scarlet. I-333 departed from Otsushima. The departure ceremony was held on the dock at 0900. A camera crew was present to make a newsreel of our departure. I waved at the camera as I passed, Takara, in case you and your friends see me at the cinema in Nagasaki. Lt Kamibeppu gave a speech on behalf of the Kikusui unit, thanking our trainers, apologizing for our blunders, and promising that every kaiten pilot will do his utmost to make our country proud of us. After this, we thanked Mrs Oshige individually. She was choked with emotion and unable to speak, but words may sully the message of the heart. The officers toasted us with omiki libation, and boarded the submarines to cries of ‘Banzai’. We stood atop our kaitens, and waved back at our classmates on shore, until we rounded the western head of Otsushima. A small flotilla of fishing boats and training canoes saw us into the open sea. Goto looked at the fishermen’s daughters through Kusakabe’s binoculars. Abe has just announced that our maintenance check has been brought forward an hour, so I’ll wait until tomorrow to tell you about I-333.
9th November
Weather: rain in the morning; a clear afternoon with swelling waves. Goto, who has a way with words, describes life in a submarine as being ‘corked into a tin flask and thrown into a flood’. Into this tin flask is fitted the forward torpedo room, officers’ qtrs, forward battery, pump room, conning tower, control room, mess, crew qtrs for 60 men, fore/aft engine rooms, after-torpedoes. Slick likens I-333 to an iron whale. I marvel at the crew: they have been on active duty since the war began with only 10 days’ shore leave! After one day, I am already aching to run, or throw a baseball. I miss our futons on Otsushima – on I-333 we sleep on narrow shelves, with sides to stop us falling out. The air is stale and the light is sepia. I must emulate the endurance of the crew. Even walking requires contortion, especially at the beginning of a voyage when the gangways are used for food storage. There are only two places one can be alone. One is the kaitens, which can be accessed from the inside of the submarine via specially adapted tubes between the submarine deck and the kaiten lower hatch. The other is the toilet. (However, submarine toilets are not conducive to lingering.) Additionally, we have Cpt Yokota’s permission to use the bridge when conditions permit. Of course, I must inform the duty officer when I go above-decks, so I can be accounted for if we have to make an emergency dive. After our evening calisthenics session I joined the ensign on lookout duty, starboard of the conning tower. At night the control room is ‘rigged for dark’ – only red lights are permitted, so Cpt or observers may switch above-and below-decks without loss of night vision. I watched the white spray on the bow and the foam wake to the rear. On moonlit nights these are telltale signs for bombers. The ensign told me the coastline to the west was Cape Sata-misaki, in Kagoshima prefecture. The end of Japan was lost in scarlet clouds.
‘EjjjMyake!’ Masanobu Suga bumper-cars into Shooting Star from the neon night, trips over and wallops the floor. He noses the ground, and grins at me – he is so drunk that his brain cannot understand how much his body hurts. Suga wobbles up to a one-legged kneel, as if he is about to ask for my hand in marriage. I dive around the counter to pick up his glasses before he grinds them to splinters. Suga thinks I am trying to help him up, and elbows me away with a ‘grfffme!’ He stands up, as stable as a newborn giraffe, and falls backwards into a rack of war movies. The rack topples and a hundred video boxes cascade. A customer – only one, luckily – stares death rays at us