Riding the East Wind
by Otohiko Kaga
translated by Ian Hideo Levy
Kōdansha International, 1999, 518 pages
This historical novel, published originally in Japanese in
1982, features diplomatic intrigue, strong family bonds, and intense wartime
suffering. The Association for 100 Japanese Books, an organization that
promotes translations of modern Japanese classics, provided funds for this fine
English translation.
Ken Kurushima, the son of a senior Japanese diplomat and
an American woman, joins the Japanese Army and becomes a test pilot for new
fighters. Although he strongly supports the continued
development of a high-altitude fighter with a pressurized cabin in order to
stop American B-29s, the Army leadership decides to concentrate on production
of suicide planes to be used in ramming attacks on B-29s. When Ken departs in a
Hayate fighter to meet a B-29 squadron, he says to a friend, "I'm
not a Kamikaze. If I attack I'll do it with my guns." However, when he
spots a B-29 below him, he dives to make a ramming attack that brings down the
American plane.
Real people and events form the basis for this novel. Saburō Kurusu (named
Saburō Kurushima in book) served as Japan's special envoy to
Washington in a eleventh-hour attempt to conduct peace negotiations with
President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Hull. Although most historians
depict Kurusu's mission as a tactic to delay and deceive the Americans while
the Japanese Navy prepared for an attack, Kaga suggests that Prime Minister Tōjō
deceived Kurusu by telling him to try to reach a peaceful settlement while
never revealing the plan to attack Pearl Harbor. Just like the novel, in real
life Saburō had an American wife named Alice who became a Japanese citizen when
the two married. Saburō and Alice Kurusu had a son named Ryō, who served
in the Japanese Army as in an experimental fighter squadron. The original Japanese title of this translated novel is Ikari
no nai fune (Ship Without an Anchor), which aptly describes the Kurusu
family (and Kurushima family) members as they moved to several diplomatic posts
around the world before 1941. The Japanese title also portrays the lives of
Alice and her half-American children as they lived in Japan during the war.
The author, Otohiko Kaga, became a cadet in the Junior Army
Academy as a teenager and saw his hometown Tokyo go up in flames in the last
year of World War II. He started his career as a professor of criminal
psychology and in his late thirties turned to writing novels. Kaga's works
achieved best-selling status in 1979 with The Sentence, an epic novel
about Japan's condemned prisoners. Riding the East Wind is his first
novel to be translated to English.
This epic novel covers events chronologically from August
1941 to August 1945, with the first half focused on Saburō's diplomatic efforts
to stop the war and the second half concentrated on Ken's experiences in the
Army. In addition to Saburō, Ken, and Alice as the protagonists, Kaga also
carefully develops distinct personalities for another dozen or so minor
characters. For example, the journalist Arizumi enthusiastically supports the
ultranationalists and Nazis, which sharply contrasts with the tactful,
diplomatic approach of his father-in-law Saburō. Kaga skillfully weaves
historical events into the plot and accurately presents the harsh conditions
faced by Japanese people near the end of the war. Descriptions of near
starvation are especially heartbreaking, as many people must barter their
household goods just to obtain food to survive.
The book's characters present varied attitudes toward
suicide attacks carried out by the Japanese military near the war's end. Ken's
mother Alice expresses several times in the book her desire for her son to stay
alive. Lieutenant Colonel Asai from Imperial Headquarters expresses the
official military view (p. 397), "In the Philippines we've already had
magnificent results with Kamikazes attacking enemy ships. If we're not willing
to use suicide planes, we'd be failing in our duty to protect the
Emperor." Ken expresses the opposite position held by many Army fighter
pilots (p. 399), "Kamikaze tactics involve the loss of men and planes. It
would be better to complete an advanced fighter." Ken gets rebuffed by a
General from Air Command, "You coward! Trying to save your own skin, are
you?" Ken's two good friends have different views toward the idea of
suicide attacks. Lieutenant Haniyu, who played a Mozart duet with his
younger sister during a visit to Ken's home, volunteers for a suicide squad and brings down a B-29 over
Tokyo in a suicide ramming attack. Lieutenant Yamada, who marries Ken's other
younger sister after the war, reminds Ken before his final flight not to forget
his parachute and to come back alive. Even though Ken had expressed his
opposition several times to suicide attacks, in the end he decides to ram a B-29 with his
fighter.
Kaga's brilliance as a novelist shines through even in a
translation. He lets readers think for themselves regarding the truth behind
certain actions and situations, since he only provides some facts and
certain characters' opinions but does not give definitive conclusions. This
reflects real life where people often do not know for certain the entire truth.
For example, the local police arrest Father Henderson, the Anglican Church pastor
in the Kurushima family's neighborhood, on suspicion of being a spy, but the
reader never knows for sure whether or not the police planted the evidence.
The book depicts racial prejudice in several different
forms. Ken sometimes receives physical abuse in the Army for his
foreign-looking face, but he has reserves of strength since he had received
beatings since starting in schools in Japan when he was eight. He also recalled
his time in Chicago, where children at the Japanese Consulate there were spat on, tripped
up, or sworn at by children simply because they looked Asian. After Ken
rams a B-29 bomber, he somehow survives after a crash landing. However, three
men from a local village kill him with bamboo spears since he looks like an
American soldier [1].
With an evenhanded approach, Kaga presents a moving story of
the conflicts faced by this Japanese-American family in the midst of war. The
novel provides excellent insights into wartime Japan and the Army pilots who
made ramming attacks on B-29s.
Note
1. The actual death of Ryo Kurusu, son of Saburō
and Alice Kurusu, was quite different than Ken Kurushima's fictional death
described in this book. Yasukuni Jinja (2003, 76) states that he fought
single-handedly against eight American planes and shot down one on February 16,
1945. Watanabe (1999) gives the following account of Ryo Kurusu's tragic death
after returning to base (translation by Mieko Morita):
Capt. Kurusu, born in January 1919, died due to an accident at Tama Army
Airfield on February 16, 1945. When an air-raid siren sounded at the
airfield, all pilots including Capt. Kurusu ran to their aircraft. As he was trying to pass in front of one plane, it moved forward two to three
meters, and its propeller cut his neck. His severed head flew up two
meters, and his headless body moved forward four or five more steps.
This accident was unavoidable even though 1st Lieutenant Umekawa, the pilot of the
plane that hit Capt. Kurusu, had fourteen and a half years of flying
experience. If someone had given instructions to 1st Lieutenant Umekawa on the taxiway,
this unfortunate accident could have been avoided. However, no one was giving
directions to the aircraft. Capt. Kurusu was running in 1st Lieutenant Umekawa’s
blind spot as everybody hurriedly ran to their planes to make sorties. 1st
Lieutenant Umekawa honestly reported the accident to his commander, Maj. Yoshitsugu
Aramaki. Maj. Aramaki did not say anything to 1st Lieutenant Umekawa, whose face
was pale. Later, the Imperial Army leaders overlooked the accident since it
was unavoidable.
Sources Cited
Watanabe, Yōji. 1999. Rikugun jikken sentōkitai (Army
experimental fighter squadrons). Tōkyō: Green Arrow Publishing.
Yasukuni Jinja. 2003. Yasukuni Jinja Yūshūkan zuroku
(Yasukuni Jinja Yūshūkan in pictures). Tōkyō: Yasukuni Jinja.
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