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twisting in front of the firebox.
    Staring at the tail-light of the last carriage as it moved into the distance, he started off again.

3
    The first time Takuya set eyes on a crew member of a B-29 Superfortress it made an indelible impression on him.
    On 16 June 1944, the bombing attack on Kokura and Yawata by B-29 Superfortresses operating from airfields in China was the first to target mainland Japan.
    The first news that long-range heavy American bombers had been seen in China had arrived on the second of April that year, in a telegram from Imperial Army Headquarters in China, and from then on there were continual reports that the US Army Air Force was strengthening its presence around bases in China’s Chengdu region. Recognising that this build-up very likely presaged attacks on targets in northern Kyushu, Imperial Headquarters followed the recommendation of Western Regional Command and ordered the Nineteenth Air Force Division, stationed in the northern Kyushu area, to begin preparations for astrategic defence under the direction of Western Regional Headquarters. Comprising two squadrons, the Nineteenth Air Force Division boasted seventy of the latest fighter planes, and could put thirty in the air at any one time, the pilots all veterans with over five hundred hours in the air. They had carried out hours of practice at night-time interception of heavy bombers, and had rehearsed their angles of attack again and again on a B-17 bomber that had been seized intact and airworthy in the early stages of the war in the Pacific. In conjunction with this preparation, anti-aircraft batteries were deployed in the northern Kyushu area, and joint exercises were carried out with the air force under the direction of Western Command to provide the optimum defensive screen.
    At Western Command headquarters, an air defence intelligence unit was set up, and spotters posted to points all over the Korea Strait and Kyushu region, along with twenty-eight electronic detection stations. In addition, an intelligence network was established, involving further spotters, electronic devices and naval vessels outside the defensive perimeter proper.
    At 11.31 p.m. on 15 June 1944, a report came in to Western headquarters from the electronic detection post on Cheju island that unidentified aircraft were moving eastwards. Forty-five minutes later, it was reported that the aircraft had crossed the line between Izuhara on Tsushima island and the island of Fukue in the Gotoh archipelago, and had then crossed the line between Izuhara and Hirado in western Kyushu, meaning that the aircraft were travelling at around four hundred kilometres an hour. At first itwas thought that they might be Japanese spotter planes, but none was capable of flying at that speed and, as no friendly aircraft had been reported taking that flight path, it was judged that this intrusion must represent a force of enemy heavy bombers heading for the northern Kyushu area. The tactical operations centre reacted by immediately contacting the Nineteenth Air Force Division and the Western Region anti-aircraft batteries on special hotlines, and Takuya, as duty officer, issued a full air-raid alert for the northern Kyushu area in the commander’s name.
    Forty-seven aircraft attacked Kokura and Yawata that night, but they met with such determined resistance from fighters that the bombing they did manage before heading back to China was virtually ineffective. Seven American bombers were shot down during the attack.
    At Western Command headquarters they had assumed that the intruders were B-17s, but inspections of the wreckage of aircraft shot down near the town of Orio in Fukuoka prefecture and Takasu in Wakamatsu city revealed that the planes were in fact the latest American bomber, the B-29 Superfortress. A crew member’s own film of B-29s during flight, discovered amid the wreckage of one plane, confirmed the appearance of the new aircraft.
    Subsequently, raids by US bombers based