TOKYO — For more than six decades, Kazuo Odachi had a secret: At the age of 17, he became a kamikaze pilot, one of thousands of young Japanese men tasked to give their lives in last-ditch suicide missions near the end of World War II.
東京——60多年來，大館和夫(Kazuo Odachi)一直保守著一個秘密：他17歲時當上了神風飛行員，成為在第二次世界大戰快結束時的最後掙扎中，被派去執行自殺式任務的成千上萬名日本年輕人之一。
As he built a family and a career as a Tokyo police officer, he kept his secret from virtually everyone, even his wife, who knew only that he had served as a Japanese Navy pilot. The experience, he felt, would be too hard to explain to a society that mostly viewed the kamikaze as maniacal zealots who volunteered for an unthinkable sacrifice.
隨著他建立了自己的家庭，開始了在東京的警察職業生涯，他幾乎從未向任何人透露過這個秘密，就連他的妻子也不例外，只知道他曾是一名日本海軍飛行員。他覺得，很難向社會解釋那段經歷，因為社會上大多數人將神風特攻隊員視為自願做出一種不可思議犧牲的粗暴狂熱分子。
But over the years, as Japan’s complex relationship with the war changed, Mr. Odachi gradually began to share his story with a small group of friends. In 2016, he published a memoir, recounting how he had fallen asleep each night wondering if tomorrow it would be his turn to die for a lost cause. The book was released in English translation in September, the 75th anniversary of the conflict’s end.
但隨著時間的流逝，日本與「二戰」的複雜關係也發生了變化，大館和夫漸漸開始把他的故事講給一小群朋友聽。2016年，他出版了一本回憶錄，講述了他怎樣在每晚入睡時都在想，明天是否會輪到他去為一件沒有希望的事情送死。這本回憶錄的英文版在二戰結束75週年的時候，於今年9月出版。
Mr. Odachi, 93, one of the last living members of a group never meant to survive, said he hoped to memorialize the pilots as young men whose valor and patriotism were exploited. 「I don’t want anyone to forget that the wonderful country that Japan has become today was built on the foundation of their deaths,」 he said in a recent interview at his home.
現年93歲的大館和夫是從未打算活下來的一群人中的最後倖存者之一。他說，他希望紀念那些年輕的飛行員，他們的英勇和愛國精神被利用了。「我不想讓人們忘記，日本今天成為一個了不起的國家，是建立在他們死亡的基礎之上的，」他最近在家中接受採訪時說。
The kamikaze are the most potent symbol of the war in Japan, a vivid example of the dangers of fervent nationalism and martial fanaticism. But as the generation who lived through the war fades away, Japan’s opposing political sides are vying to reinterpret the kamikaze for a public still divided over the conflict’s legacy.
神風特攻隊是「二戰」中的日本最強有力的象徵，是狂熱民族主義和軍事狂熱主義危險的生動例子。但隨著經歷過「二戰」的那代人逐漸消逝，日本政治的對立各方正在如何向一個仍對這場戰爭的遺產存在分歧的公眾重新解釋「神風特攻隊」方面展開激烈競爭。
For the right, the kamikaze are a symbol of traditional virtues and a spirit of self-sacrifice that they believe is woefully absent from modern Japan. For the left, they are part of a generation destroyed by Japanese militarism, and a powerful reminder of the importance of maintaining the country’s postwar pacifism.
在右翼眼裡，神風特攻隊是傳統美德和自我犧牲精神的象徵，他們認為現代日本可悲地缺乏這種精神。在左翼眼裡，神風特攻隊是被日本軍國主義毀掉的那代人的一部分，是對維持日本戰後和平主義重要性的有力提醒。
「The kamikaze as a historical fact, and as a symbol, have a very powerful potential to be used on either side of that argument,」 said M.G. Sheftall, a professor at Shizuoka University and the author of 「Blossoms in the Wind,」 a collection of interviews with the pilots.
「神風特攻隊作為一個歷史事實，作為一個象徵，有非常大的潛力被爭論的雙方利用，」靜岡大學(Shizuoka University)教授M·G·謝夫塔奧(M.G. Sheftall)說，他著有《風中的花朵》(Blossom in the Wind)一書，該書收集了對神風飛行員的採訪。
Mr. Odachi himself has little interest in politics. Nowadays, he welcomes visitors into his home in the Tokyo suburbs, where he vividly re-enacts old war scenes, stomping on imaginary airplane pedals and fiercely pulling a pretend flight stick.
大館和夫本人對政治不感興趣。這些日子裡，他在自己位於東京郊區的家中歡迎訪客時，喜歡生動地再現舊時的戰鬥場景，用力地踩著想像中的飛機油門，使勁地拉著假裝的飛行操縱桿。
His story defies the simple stereotypes often evoked by Japan’s conservatives and liberals.
他的故事無法用日本保守派和自由派經常使用的簡單刻板印象來解釋。
He volunteered to fight in a war he believed his country would not win. He was prepared to die to protect those he loved, but not to throw his life away.
他自願報名參加了一場他認為他的國家不會贏的戰爭。他準備好了為保護他所愛之人而死，但並不想白白放棄自己的生命。
Today, he is staunchly antiwar and thinks Japan’s pacifist constitution is fine just the way it is, but he remains a strong advocate for the country’s right to self-defense. He has no regrets about his decision to enlist, and he visits Yasukuni Shrine — where generations of Japan’s fallen soldiers are enshrined alongside some of its most notorious war criminals — several times a year to console the souls of his friends who died in combat.
如今，他堅定地反對戰爭，認為維持日本的和平憲法是最好的選擇，但他依然堅定地倡導日本的自衛權利。他對自己的入伍決定一點兒也不後悔，並為安慰死於「二戰」朋友的亡靈，每年幾次去靖國神社(Yasukuni Shrine)參拜，那裡供奉著日本世世代代的陣亡將士，以及一些最臭名昭著的戰犯。
Growing up in a village near an air base, Mr. Odachi had long been fascinated by planes, and when the war began, he decided that he would one day fly one. He enlisted in Japan’s armed forces in 1943 and joined the Yokaren, an elite group of teenagers who were trained as Navy pilots.
大館和夫在一個空軍基地附近的村子裡長大，一直對飛機著迷，他在「二戰」開始時做出決定，有朝一日要當飛機員。1943年，他報名參加了日本軍隊，並加入了「予科練」，這是一個將一群精英青少年訓練成海軍飛行員的項目。
穿著飛行員制服的18歲的大舘和夫。 NORIKO HAYASHI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
The Yokaren, Mr. Odachi pointed out, were different from other kamikaze, students who had been yanked out of their schools and consigned to death with little preparation or training. Still, the young men in Mr. Odachi’s program were groomed to die in aerial combat even before Japan’s desperate turn to suicide missions.
大館和夫指出，予科練與其他神風特攻隊不同，後者由那些從學校徵來的、幾乎沒有準備或經過訓練就被派去送死的學生組成。儘管如此，大館和夫及其所在項目的年輕人，在日本絕望地轉向自殺式行動之前，就已經做好了在空戰中犧牲的準備。
Cadets were celebrated as cherry blossoms, a flower whose vivid beauty is accentuated by its brief existence. Even the buttons on their uniforms, embossed with the flower, served as a reminder of their imminent death in battle.
學員們被贊為櫻花，櫻花的短暫飽綻更讓其生動美麗顯得突出。櫻花的圖案甚至印在他們制服的鈕扣上，作為對他們時刻可能在戰場上死亡的提醒。
「We all knew that 『happily ever after』 was an unlikely outcome,」 Mr. Odachi wrote in his book, 「Memoirs of a Kamikaze.」 「We weren’t destined to live long.」
「我們都知道，『從此過上幸福生活』是一個不太可能的結局，」大館和夫在他的《神風特攻隊員回憶錄》(Memoirs of a Kamikaze)中寫道。「我們本來註定活不長。」
When he arrived in Japanese-occupied Taiwan in August of 1944, the war was entering its end stage.
1944年8月，他被派往日本佔領下的臺灣時，「二戰」已進入尾聲。
Japanese forces had been ground down by American technological superiority and the overwhelming production capacity of the U.S. war machine. An allied victory appeared increasingly inevitable, and Japanese tactics began to demand even greater human sacrifice.
日本軍隊已被美國的技術優勢和美國戰爭機器壓倒性的生產能力快壓垮了。盟軍的勝利似乎越來越不可避免，而日本的戰術則開始要求更多人做出犧牲。
In dogfights, pilots were instructed to 「aim to carve the enemy with our own propellers,」 Mr. Odachi wrote. 「Of course, death was a certainty if this happened, but at least we would take the enemy with us.」
飛行員在空戰中接到的指令是「以用自己的螺旋槳打掉敵人為目標」，大館和夫寫道。「當然，如果這樣做，那會必死無疑，但至少我們能拉上敵人做墊背。」
The tactics hinged on the belief that Japanese airmen were more willing to die than their enemies.
這種戰術基於一個信念，即日本飛行員比敵人更願意去送死。
The force of that conviction was put to the test in October 1944, when Japan’s Navy decided to gamble everything to stop an American attack on its forces in the Philippines, during what would become known as the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
這個信念的力量在1944年10月受到了檢驗。當時，日本海軍決定，在後來被稱為雷伊泰灣戰役(Battle of Leyte Gulf)的行動中，不惜一切代價阻止美國對日本駐菲律賓部隊發起的攻擊。
Japanese officers explained to Mr. Odachi and his cohort the plan to use suicide missions and asked for volunteers. They were met with stunned silence.
日本軍官向大館和夫及其同伴們解釋了使用自殺行動的計劃，並讓他們自願報名。軍官們得到的是震驚的沉默。
Only when the officers began to harangue them did the first few men reticently volunteer, he wrote. 「We were essentially cajoled into committing suicide,」 he recalled.
大館和夫寫道，只是在軍官開始對他們大聲訓話時，才有了幾名默默地自告奮勇的首批飛行員。「我們實際上是被誘騙去自殺的，」他回憶道。
On Oct. 25, Mr. Odachi witnessed the first successful sortie of suicide fighters take off from a bombed-out runway in the Philippines. But Mr. Odachi and his fellow troops soon found themselves pinned down in the island nation, as American bombers destroyed many of his squadron’s remaining planes.
10月25日，大館和夫親眼看著成功執行出擊任務的首批自殺式戰機從菲律賓被炸毀的跑道上起飛。而他和戰友們很快就發現，他們被困在了這個島國，因為美國的轟炸機摧毀了他所在中隊剩餘的多架戰機。
大舘和夫在二戰中執行任務時戴的絲圍巾。圍巾使用降落傘做的，上面綉著他所在部隊的象徵：櫻花和藍貓。 NORIKO HAYASHI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Months later, he and others escaped to Taiwan, where, on April 4, 1945, he was ordered on the first mission of his 10-month stint as a suicide pilot.
幾個月後，他和其他人一起從菲律賓逃到了臺灣。1945年4月4日，他接到命令，去執行他當上自殺式飛行員10個月以來的首次任務。
Mr. Odachi’s Zero — the agile Japanese fighter plane that dominated the Pacific skies in the war’s early years — was loaded with an 1,100-pound bomb, weighing it down so much that it would be impossible to outmaneuver the enemy. When American fighters spotted him, he jettisoned his bomb into the ocean and managed to escape.
大館和夫駕駛的零式戰鬥機是曾在「二戰」初期主宰太平洋空域的行動靈活的日本飛機，但在這次任務中裝載了一枚500公斤的炸彈，機身變得重到讓他不可能靈活地應對敵機。當他的飛機被美國戰機發現後，他把炸彈丟棄到海裡，才得以脫身。
On his next sortie, his group failed to find a target. The next six missions also ended in failure.
下次出擊時，他的機組沒有找到目標。接下來的六次任務也都以失敗告終。
After each attempt, he would wait for weeks for new orders. Every night, the officers announced who would fly into battle the next day. It 「felt like the conferral of the death penalty, and it was stomach-turning,」 he wrote.
每次任務之後，他會等上好幾週才接到新的命令。每個夜晚，軍官會宣布誰將在第二天執行戰鬥任務。「感覺像是被判處了死刑，讓人胃裡有一種翻騰的感覺，」他寫道。
But by the end, he said, 「we had become indifferent to matters of life and death. Our only concern was making the final moment count.」
但後來，他說，「我們變得對生死漠不關心。我們唯一關心的是在最後的時刻成功。」
That moment, however, never came. On his final mission, his plane was preparing to take off when a member of the ground crew ran onto the runway, shouting and waving for the squadron to stop. The emperor, Mr. Odachi learned, had just announced Japan’s surrender. He was going home.
但是，那個時刻始終沒有到來。在去執行他的最後一次任務的飛機正準備起飛時，一名地勤人員跑上跑道，大喊著揮手讓飛行隊停下來。大館和夫得知，天皇剛剛宣布了日本投降。他要回家了。
On his return, as a train took him through the bombed-out remains of Hiroshima, he truly understood that the war was over. At his home in Tokyo, he took the ceremonial short sword commemorating his status as a kamikaze and threw it into the hearth fire, where it melted into a lump of steel.
在回家途中，他乘坐的火車從廣島被炸毀的廢墟中穿過，讓他真正感受到戰爭已經結束。回到東京的家中後，他把作為神風特攻隊身份紀念的禮儀短配劍扔進了爐火裡，熔化成了一個鋼塊。
His only souvenirs from the war are a handful of photos and a present from a young woman he met in Taiwan: a silk scarf, made from a parachute, that is embroidered with cherry blossoms and a blue anchor, the symbol of the Yokaren.
他從「二戰」帶回來的為數不多的紀念品包括幾張照片，以及他在臺灣遇到的一名年輕女子送給他的禮物：一條用降落傘布做成的絲巾，上面綉著予科練的象徵：櫻花和藍錨。
Mr. Odachi has never revealed the woman’s identity. It is one of the few things about the war he still refuses to talk about.
大館和夫從未把這名女子的身份告訴過任何人。這是他仍拒絕談論的為數不多的有關「二戰」的事情之一。
People, he said, have often remarked that the kamikaze 「didn’t value their own lives.」 He hopes that his memoir will remind them not just of the conflict’s costs, but also of the humanity of the young men whose lives were sacrificed for it.
他說，人們經常談論神風特攻隊「不珍惜自己的生命」。他希望他的回憶錄不僅提醒人們那場衝突的代價，也提醒人們那些為衝突犧牲了生命的年輕人的人性。
「We were the same age as today’s high school students and college freshmen,」 he said. 「There wasn’t a single person among us who would have decided on their own to die.」
「我們當時就和今天的高中生和大學一年級新生差不多年紀，」他說。「我們當中沒有一個人會自己決定去死。」
【福利】
The Economist 5 December.pdf
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