|
|
|
|
Zenjirō Sugano
|
|
|
First Battle Results: Change in Tactics, Only Sinking (Ōka no shosenka:
Senjutsu o tenkan, yuiitsu no gekichin)
Researched and written by Shūji Fukano and Fusako Kadota
Pages 112-114 of Tokkō kono chi yori: Kagoshima shutsugeki no kiroku
(Special attacks from this land: Record of Kagoshima sorties)
Minaminippon Shinbunsha, 2016, 438 pages
Just past noon on April 12, 1945, Zenjirō Sugano (88 years old, resident of
Fukushima City), the radio telegraph operator of a Jinrai Butai (Thunder Gods
Corps) Type 1 Attack Bomber (Allied code name of Betty), took off from Kanoya
Air Base as a member of the 3rd Ōka Special Attack Squadron.
There were nine Type 1 Attack Bombers, which each carried an ōka human bomb.
The squadron did not fly in formation, and each aircraft headed toward Okinawa
by a separate route. Ensign Kitatarō Miura, aircraft captain who had charge of
the lives of seven men including Sugano and ōka pilot Lieutenant Junior Grade
Saburō Dohi, chose an indirect route where for a while the aircraft proceeded
west over the East China Sea and then made a 90-degree change in course.
On March 21, the Jinrai Butai 1st Ōka Special Attack Squadron lost 18 Type 1
Attack Bombers and 160 squadron members with a single stroke. The lesson was
learned of the recklessness of a formation attack while the American military
had command of the skies. Therefore, along with switching to single aircraft
attacks for ōka attacks, it was decided to jointly execute fighter-bomber
special (suicide) attacks by Zero carrier-based fighters that each carried a
500-kg bomb.
However, with the change in strategy, on April 1 the 2nd Ōka Special Attack
Squadron did not achieve any battle results, and Type 1 Attack Bombers one after
another did not return to base. Sugano, who was 18 years old, had prepared
himself saying, "My turn to die has come." All Type 1 Attack Bomber squadron
members understood the situation where "it was difficult to expect to return
alive."
"We are engaged with enemy fighters." "Now we will crash our plane into a
target." A little more than one hour after leaving Kanoya, heartbreaking
wireless messages came in one after another from escort planes that had taken
separate routes. Sugano thought, "If we encounter enemy fighters, we cannot flee
and get away. Please do not find us."
We saw an American warship stopped on the sea. Ensign Miura decided
on an ōka attack. Sugano assisted Lieutenant Junior Grade Dohi to move to the
ōka.
The Type 1 Attack Bomber, which dropped to a lower altitude, shook violently
due to enemy warship antiaircraft fire. The launch buzzer sounded, but the ōka
did not release due to a malfunction in the electric motor device. Lieutenant
Junior Grade Dohi gripped the control stick and stared forward.
Sugano rushed to the manual drop cord and pulled it as he closed his eyes.
When he opened his eyes, the ōka had disappeared. He verified that
there was much black
smoke and a ring of fuel oil where the enemy ship had been. He sent a telegram in
secret code that said "one enemy warship immediately sunk" to the 5th Air Fleet
Headquarters in Kanoya.
Sugano's aircraft was hit dozens of times by antiaircraft fire, and somehow
it made it back to Kanoya Base. What was waiting for him was a grilling by 5th Air Fleet staff officers who doubted the battle results. "Did you really
instantly sink a ship?" "Are you certain that it was a warship?" The interrogation
was harsh.
Sugano states, "That was not a way to talk to someone who had been given an
imperfect weapon and had been able to escape from the jaws of death. That being the
case, I thought that these staff officers themselves should have witnessed that scene
of carnage." Even today his anger, which he holds toward the high-ranking
officers who could not imagine the hardships experienced during battle, has not subsided.
According to American military records, on this date Lieutenant Junior Grade
Dohi sank the destroyer Mannert L. Abele. It was the only ship that was
sunk by an ōka weapon during the war.
Type 1 Attack Bomber, carrying an ōka, ready to make
sortie from Kanoya Air Base on April 12, 1945,
as part of Jinrai Butai (Thunder Gods Corps)
3rd Ōka Special Attack Squadron
Related Web Pages
Translated by Bill Gordon
September 2024
HOME >
Stories >
First Battle Results: Change in Tactics, Only Sinking
|
|
