“¦our lives in the Academy, life slowly became hell. It was a normal routine in the day and sleepless nights in the underground shelter.
On 9 March and on subsequent occasions when the fires raged at night over Tokyo, we who were well north of the place could still see the fiery glow at night. Twenty years later, in 1965, I had an opportunity to see some of these raids in an actual war film from the US Air Force library at Randolph Airforce Base in San Antonio, Texas, where I had been sent by the Indian Air Force to undergo the Instrument Pilot Instructors’ Course. Even to those pilots dropping the incendiary bombs, the sight must have been horrific. It was just a case of dropping a shower of incendiaries in a concentrated area and the waves of aircraft which followed just carried on from there in carpet-bombing fashion.
To get back to our lives in the Academy, life slowly became hell. It was a normal routine in the day and sleepless nights in the underground shelter. We were at the stage of having completed our glider training and eagerly awaited the training with power-driven aircraft that was soon to begin.
For some reason that I don’t recollect now, we had not booked out of camp for months. We were allowed out once a month on a Sunday, but escorted by the captain and his men to secluded parks or hillsides. It was more like an organised picnic. The Japanese countryside is beautiful and clean. There is no barren area at all as every piece of arable land is utilised to the full to grow fruit, staple crop and vegetables. But the Japanese used human manure as fertilizer and the problem with walking through a beautiful field was the pervasive stench.
As we were walking to the nearest tube station, there was an air raid. We had no time to run for shelter.
One Sunday, our captain decided to take us to his house. On the way there in the local train, there was an air raid. The train stopped and all the passengers scrambled into the fields and lay flat on the ground. We followed. A US naval carrier-based aircraft carried out a pass on the train with its front-gun and pulled away.
There was no second attack as either the fighter had run out of ammunition or was short of fuel. The passengers calmly boarded the train and we resumed our journey and reached our destination. It was as if nothing had happened. The Americans admitted after the War that in spite of the large-scale raids and bombing carried out by them, the Tokyo train service never fell below 40 per cent of its normal capacity.
On another occasion, we were invited to an event at the Indian Independence League Headquarters in Tokyo. We were very excited about the trip as it would be a break from the routine of the Academy. Accompanied by our Sergeant, we left by train for this place which was situated in the heart of Tokyo. The event itself was not very interesting, but it afforded an opportunity to meet some of the local Indians.
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When it was over and as we were walking to the nearest tube station, there was an air raid. We had no time to run for shelter. As soon as we heard the rattle of guns and the noise of bombs exploding nearby, we just flattened ourselves on the pavement, and not a moment too soon, as it turned out. Bimal Deb was a little late taking cover and yelled out that he had been hit. He was taken to the hospital at the Academy, and they found a tiny piece of shrapnel embedded in his thigh. He underwent an operation and the offending piece was removed. He kept the piece as a memento, but it was so small that one needed a magnifying glass to view it. It is amazing that this was the only injury suffered by any of us during all this massive bombing and strafing that took place in our part of town. I guess we were just lucky.
Manoeuvres and Other Exercises
We were very keen to visit the Army Academy and enjoy a reunion with our army colleagues, but it never materialised. Instead, seven of them visited us at the Academy, and we had an interesting time exchanging experiences. Some of the stories they told us were most amusing. It appears that when they were on manoeuvres, one of the exercises entailed that they make their own way back to a rendezvous, successfully avoiding ‘the enemy’. One unlucky cadet, whom I shall not name, fell into a sewage storage pit in the fields. He yelled for help from his comrades, but no one was willing to lend him a hand as he was covered in sewage from head to toe. He somehow managed to haul himself out of the pit, successfully evaded ‘the enemy’ (no enemy soldier wanted to capture him in this state!) and reached the ‘rendezvous’ safely, only to be reprimanded by the officer and punished for the state of his uniform and the condition of his rifle.
We had not slept much the night before because of a long-drawn air raid, the drill was not going too well. The Captain was frustrated and made us repeat each exercise several times over.
We did have a hearty laugh over this episode, but I can quite imagine what he must have gone through. He scrubbed and cleaned himself thoroughly and wore a new uniform but his so-called friends reportedly kept a safe distance from him for two or three days until the incident was forgotten.
The other stories they told us were about how they were slapped by their seniors for not saluting properly, and how, now that they were seniors, some of them had meted out the same treatment to their juniors. They were surprised and envious of us when they saw how well we were being treated at the Air Force Academy. A few days prior to their visit they had been promoted to full-corporal rank and now sported two stars on their collar tabs. So they were superior to us on this count. Though we were extremely jealous at this developement, in two months’ time, we too were given two stars—though there was no one to show these off to!
Life in the Academy had its peaceful side. Adjacent to our barracks, which was last in a row of buildings, there was a flower-hedged lawn with a Japanese arch or gate at one end. This was an open-air Shinto temple, and cadets of many different religions went there to pray. The nice thing about the temple was that except for the arch, there were no idols, no incense burning, no priest and no preaching. We were regular visitors here when we were free in the evenings.
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