The Miraculous Torpedo Squadron
Book Title:The Miraculous Torpedo SquadronAuthor:Mori Juzo (translated Nicholas Voge)ISBN:None: Kindle Edition ASIN: B00THSCSS8Category:BiographyFormat:PaperbackSummary:The Miraculous Torpedo Squadron
Other than fighter ace Saburo Sakai’s life story (which I first encountered as a Christian youth “comic book” focusing on his religious conversion, but which also exists in various more serious book formats), it seems accounts from Japanese pilots are some of the rarest, at least in English. This makes “The Miraculous Torpedo Squadron” by Juzo Mori a doubly welcome addition to the literature of the air war. And Sakai, a classmate of Mori’s, actually writes the forward to the book.
Mori, however, is not a fighter ace, but a determined and aggressive torpedo bomber pilot, flying a “Kate”. These airmen were derided as mere “cart drivers” by their more glamourous brethren - an insult which Mori “owned” after the war, establishing a nightclub named “The Cart Driver”. Mori is also a sergeant pilot, a concept unfamiliar to Americans, and with class distinctions more dramatic than those which separated sergeant pilots from officers in the RAF. Despite his rank he is often assigned to lead flights including Warrant Officers in combat; this is never quite explained. However, an internal debate among the pilots when they are assigned a completely inexperienced – but commissioned – commander, gives a particularly Japanese twist to the old problem of the noncommissioned vets “breaking in “ a green Lieutenant.
Torpedo bomber training is related in detail, especially the specialized drills for delivering torpedoes in shallow water – which turns out to be training for the Pearl Harbor attack, in which Mori takes part. An attack denounced as “cowardly” actually required considerable bravery and skill on the part of the attackers themselves, irrespective of the morality of the national strategy.
Mori does not question the “big picture” of the war, treating most events as things which unfolded inevitably, with no criticism for the Allies or the highest levels of his command (although errors at mid-levels are pointed out, and some units whose performance disappointed Mori come in for harsh criticism). A certain fatalism pervades the work, as Mori takes joy in flying and even in fighting, and especially in camaraderie, but accepts the course of the war with no evident sense of personal responsibility.
Even though the book’s wartime action ends at Guadalcanal, long before the official kamikaze policy, the idea of the suicide attack is never far from Mori’s mind or those of his comrades. Indeed, the torpedo bomber is seen as a near-suicide weapon in the first place – a view which actually makes a lot of sense, considering the common fate of those flyers.
A grim joke Mori relates: before battle the pilots refer to the “Express train for Yasukuni Shrine leaving soon – and the torpedo pilots will get the first seats!” (Yasukuni Shrine is the Japanese memorial to war dead and the Shinto home of the spirits of the nation’s slain warriors.) “To be a good pilot you must first be a good person”, an instructor relates to him, and Mori lives this out, but in the Japanese fashion. An important question in budo philosophy was: “Is it better to a bad samurai for a good lord, or a good samurai serving an evil lord?” The Japanese traditional answer was that the virtues of the samurai were what counted, not the rightness of his cause. This enabled effective warfare but inhibited judgement, and the Western reader is likely to see Mori in a different light than he sees himself – although certainly as a brave, skilled and tragic figure.
It’s also important to realize that, as a Japanese, any criticism he has of superior or even peers is bound to be muted, for cultural reasons – so muted that a Westerner might miss the point.
At Midway, Mori witnessed the forlorn hope attack of Torpedo Squadron Eight. “A torpedo plane doesn’t stand a chance against a fighter…as a torpedo pilot myself I couldn’t help but pity them. I felt a deep respect for their bravery.” “Grummans” are the bane of his own existence, and Zeros the protectors and rescuers upon whom he depends.
He relates the scramble to re-arm the bombers aboard Soryu, and the confusion which preceded that carrier’s dramatic end. The loss at Midway he ascribe to the broken code but also to “victory disease”, very accurately in my opinions. He then relates the Guadalcanal Campaign, first strategically and then from the point of view of an air warrior – and finally, after being shot down and wounded badly, from the point of view of a casualty sharing the misery of the infantry on the island the Japanese nicknamed “Starvation Island”. His fighting career ends with his evacuation from Guadalcanal.
Mori draws no political conclusions from the results of the war and expresses satisfaction with his own war record. “…I consider myself very fortunate to have been a pilot. I say that not out of sentimentality or pride but rather from the joy that comes of taking leave of the earth and seeing and experiencing all those things that only pilots know. This includes the stress of life and death battles….”
This book is highly recommended for those interested in the Imperial Japanese Navy aviation forces,in the Pearl Harbor, Midway and Guadalcanal campaigns, in torpedo bombers and torpedo bombing training and strategy - and since it’s a well-written volume with engaging stories and characters and fascinating details of IJN life, it might well be the sort of book your non-warbird-buff friends could enjoy just as much as you will. Illustrated with numerous B&W photos, many from naval archives but some from personal collection.
I read this book in its Kindle edition.
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That will make a nice companion volume to "Shattered Sword".
) - thanks very much for posting.
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