by James Young
As he dived, Isoro waggled his wings, signaling his wingmen to choose their own targets. The Shiden were outnumbered, but with the advantage of altitude and surprise, their numbers should prove more than sufficient to shatter the American formation. He watched as Lt. Cdr. Itaya opened fire, the 20mm tracers heading towards the lead American fighter.
It was only as the diving Shiden opened up that Yellow Two, the squadron commander’s wingman, saw the diving fighters out of the corner of his eye. The man never had a chance to give a warning, dying moments after Itaya’s burst shattered Yellow One’s cockpit. In that first, violent dive the nine Akagi fighters shot down or critically damaged five of the Lexington Grummans before zoom climbing back up to altitude.
Isoro snap rolled his fighter over onto its back, cursing his luck as he whipped his head around to find another Wildcat. His target had reflexively jerked in response to the American leader exploding, meaning Isoro’s burst had barely clipped the fighter’s wings. Forewarned, the Americans were now going to be far tougher targets. His vision reddening as he finished his loop, he spotted a lone Wildcat turning to try and rejoin his section leader. With a kick of the rudder and movement of the stick, Isoro rolled the Shiden to cut off the American’s turn, his speed advantage bringing the hapless Grumman into range.
As per usual when Isoro was about to engage a target, time seemed to slow. The American pilot, either warned or somehow sensing danger, turned to look at Isoro. Squeezing his trigger, Isoro felt the Shiden shake as his four cannon fired. Time suddenly sped up again as he watched pieces flying off the Grumman’s wings and fuselage, culminating with the entire tail section separating. Kicking his rudder and pulling up, Isoro clawed for altitude again, doing a quick check of his tail.
“More enemy fighters approaching! We are attacking!” came the garbled shout from the second chutai leader.
Looking around, Isoro suddenly realized that the man was right and there were many, many more Americans approaching from their same altitude and below. Signaling to his wingmen, he advanced the throttle and began climbing for height, wanting to gain an advantage before the Americans got within range. Fighting against superior numbers was nothing new to the Japanese pilots, and there were reinforcements on the way.
U.S.S. Arizona
0820 Local (1320 Eastern)
“Would someone like to explain to me where in the hell the Army is?!” Admiral Jensen roared.
When they had received word that there were numerous aircraft inbound, CINCPACFLT and his staff had moved from the flag plot to the Arizona ‘s flag bridge. Now, as he looked out the window at the numerous falling smoke trails and listened to the panicked reports coming over the FDO net, Admiral Jensen felt a slight sense of concern.
“Order the battleline to flank speed, bring us around to course two seven zero true,” Jensen ordered. “Maybe if we sail back towards Oahu the Army will actually do its damn job!”
I am going to have that bastard Greenman shot, Jensen thought, feeling the Arizona’s deck starting to throb beneath his feet.
“Sir, we have contacted headquarters. The duty officer reports the Army interceptors headed the wrong way,” Vice Admiral Bowles reported. “They are sending their reserve aircraft our direction, and they should be overhead within thirty minutes.”
“If we have thirty minutes,” Jensen growled in return.
In the skies above the task force, things were beginning to go poorly for the Akagi’s fighters. The first loss to the Americans had come from the second chutai, which had foolishly attacked six of Saratoga’s reinforcements in a head on run. In a simple test of skill, the Shiden’s superior speed and firepower were neutralized, with one fighter falling to Lieutenant Commander Thach, VF-3’s squadron commander, and the second to Lieutenant Edward “Butch” O’Hare.
The seven remaining Shiden suddenly found themselves heavily outnumbered as eight of Yorktown’s fighters arrived on the scene. A prudent choice for Itaya would have been to lead his surviving fighters away from the furball. Unfortunately, the easy success of the initial dive and the Akagi squadron leaders inherent aggressiveness led him to reengage on terms that favored the Americans. In a swift, brutal series of exchanges, two more Shidens fell in exchange for three Wildcats. Itaya, easily cutting in behind Thach’s turn, never saw Thach’s wingman before the latter sawed off the lead Shiden’s port wing.
Isoro shoved his throttle to the firewall and pulled up, hoping his wingmen followed him. Kicking his rudder to avoid a Grumman trying to shoot at him, out of the corner of his eye he watched Lieutenant Commander Itaya’s fighter whirl wildly out of control.
It is time to leave, he thought, fear making his breath come in short huffs. Checking for his wingmen, he noted with some slight satisfaction that Watanabe and Yoshida were both still with him.
We tried to do our job, but there were simply too many of them, Isoro thought angrily. Where is the rest of the first wave?! Turning, he looked around to clear his tail. With a sense of relief, he realized that none of the Americans were chasing his retreating chutai. Looking to port, he saw two more Shidens closing up to reform. Returning to look forward, he saw that his question had just been answered, as first a few, then dozens of dots appeared to his north. Looking like a swarm of angry bees, the first wave’s escorts began to separate from their charges and head towards Isoro’s approaching fighters.
I sincerely hope they don’t mistake us for enemy aircraft, Isoro thought with an impending sense of doom. He was about to key his radio when he heard the Commander Fuchida acknowledge the Akagi fighters and begin to give orders to the strike group. As the escorts thundered past, Isoro turned to look at his fuel gauges and checked over his fighter. As he watched the torpedo bombers begin their turns to move ahead of the American battleships and the dive bombers split into their separate chutais, Isoro put his fighter into a gentle bank.
We can stay for a few more minutes of combat, he thought. Let us see how the Americans deal with being outnumbered.
Chapter 8: Götterdämerung
Despite the claims of air enthusiasts, no battleship has yet been sunk by bombs—Army-Navy game program, November 29, 1941.
Kido Butai
0835 Local (1335 Eastern)
26 March 1943
“Sir, Commander Fuchida reports contact with the enemy fleet. There are three carriers present,” Captain Kaku reported out of breath, having just run up from the radio room to Akagi’s open bridge. To Rear Admiral Kusaka’s obvious annoyance, the junior officer handed Vice Admiral Yamaguchi the position report directly.
We do not have time to get hung up on protocol, Kusaka-san, Yamaguchi thought as he took the message. After a brief perusal and glance at the map, he made his decision.
“Order Fuchida to strike the battleships as planned,” Yamaguchi said.
Kusaka and Kaku looked at him in shock.
“It is too late to change the plan,” Yamaguchi snapped. “Order the second wave to divert to the carriers. Turn the fleet south, we may have to launch a third strike after all.”
“Sir, but there are three carriers,” Kusaka said. “Combined with the enemy’s land based aircraft, they may overwhelm our CAP!”
Admiral Yamaguchi clenched his fists at his side, fighting down the urge to physically beat the man before him.
He would not question Nagumo in such a manner, and I will not allow him to question me this way, Yamaguchi thought.
“Admiral Kusaka, you have your orders! Carry them out or confine yourself to your cabin!”
Akagi’s master, Captain Hasegawa, locked eyes with Admiral Yamaguchi over Kusaka’s shoulder. A strict disciplinarian, Hasegawa did not suffer fools gladly nor accept the questioning of orders. With his one glance, Admiral Yamaguchi saw that if Kusaka continued to argue Hasegawa would quickly and brutally end the discussion by hauling the man below.
Kusaka had decent survival instincts if not the best control of his tongue. Realizing he had overstepped his bounds, he bowed apologeti
cally.
“Sir, I will carry out your orders,” Kusaka stated solemnly. Executing a sharp about-face, he turned and exited from the Akagi’s bridge.
The tension of the moment broken, Yamaguchi turned back towards the bow of the carrier. Behind him, he could hear the Captain Hasegawa barking the orders to bring the Akagi about.
Scarlet Two
0840 Local (1340 Eastern)
“Tallyho! Multiple bandits, twelve o’clock high!” Scarlet Three sang out, sighting the massive wing of dive bombers heading for the Pacific Fleet.
Shoving his throttle forward, Byrnes cast a worried glance at his fuel gauge. The Wildcat was not exactly the longest-legged of aircraft, and he had spent far too much of the last hour at full throttle. As the CAP strained for altitude, Peter saw a large number of the dots break off and begin accelerating towards him. Utilizing their altitude advantage, the Zeroes began closing rapidly in a shallow dive.
“Holy shit!” someone shouted over the fighter net. As warnings went, it left much to be desired, and as last words went it was embarrassingly common. Peter was one of three pilots in the entire American force to see a sky full of charging Japanese aircraft, and as such he was at least able to roll his fighter and attempt to dive out of the way.
Isoro had used a ruse that had worked to good effect against the Chinese and their mercenary pilots. Knowing that the enemy would be fixated on the closing bombers, he had swung his force of Akagi fighters wide and to port of the bombers direction of advance. Moving at full throttle, he had swiftly opened the range to roughly four or five miles then moved back in. Followed by several chutai of Kaga and Soryu fighters who had quickly realized what he was up to, Isoro had managed to obtain the drop on the less experienced American pilots.
Only two services in the entire world had regularly practiced deflection shooting during the pre-war period. One had been the United States Navy / Marine Corps, who had managed to turn the action into an art form. The other, ironically, had been the Imperial Japanese Navy, the USN’s most likely opponent. Coming in high and from the side, the training plus experience of the old China hands in the Akagi and Kaga contingents made surprise attack particularly deadly.
Isoro, at the lead of the charge, chose the leading enemy fighter as his target. Opening fire at just under two hundred yards, he watched his burst slam into the center of the Wildcat’s fuselage. In a mixed blessing, the storm of cannon fire killed the commander of VF-5 before his half-empty fuel tanks turned the Wildcat into a flying crematorium. Isoro, having learned his lesson from the first engagement, immediately pulled up into a zoom climb as his shattered prey fell away engulfed in flames.
Isoro’s kill was duplicated by four other IJN pilots, VF-5 being the unfortunate victims as the lead squadron. Only the innate toughness of the Wildcat and Zeroes’ weaker armament saved the Americans from suffering far worse casualties, as five more Wildcat pilots found themselves piloting damaged mounts. Mistaking the Americans’ evasive dives for death spirals, the IJN pilots believed that they had managed to destroy all ten, rather than just five, of VF-5s advancing CAP.
As the remaining CAP fighters turned towards Isoro’s sudden bounce, they suddenly found themselves beset on all sides by the remaining first wave escorts. Attacking by squadrons, the Zeroes gave the Americans little chance. Fighting and dying bravely, the Americans took five Zeroes with them in exchange for all but three of the remaining CAP fighters. These remaining fighters, Peter among them, dived away in bewildered shock.
Roaring past the scene of the CAP’s demise, the dive bombers from the carriers began choosing their targets.
Standing on the stern of the Arizona, binoculars to his eyes, Captain Greenman began to speak softly.
“Yea, though I walk through the Valley of Death,” he whispered, thinking back to his days as a young choir boy at a Catholic cathedral in Chicago. The intelligence officer had lost a great deal of his faith since joining the Navy, to the point where his wife had begun to chastise him for it in front of the children.
They’re probably enjoying a nice spring day in Chicago…
“Sir, we’re not going to be able to take off!” the Arizona’s aviation officer shouted from the seaplane’s cockpit. “We need to get this plane over the side!”
Before Greenman could respond, the Pacific Fleet’s outer screen opened fire.
Despite Admiral Jensen’s best efforts, there had not been enough time to train for every occurrence. One of the drills that had fallen by the wayside in lieu of increased time conducting surface gunnery had been anti-aircraft defense of the entire battleline. Based on Captain Greenman’s estimates and existing USN doctrine, Admiral Jensen had believed that the odds of a massed attack on the entire Pacific Fleet were extremely low. Furthermore, the Royal Navy’s experience had indicated that sustained, rapid anti-aircraft fire with heavy weapons was a sufficient deterrent to torpedo attack and a passable defense against dive bombers. Unfortunately, as Admiral Jensen and his subordinates were about to find out, the Kido Butai’s first wave was several orders of magnitude more lethal than a couple dozen of Italian torpedo bombers or Staffel of German Stukas.
In a matter moments, the American fleet was bedlam, as every gun within range opened fire on the approaching dive bombers. Utilizing timed fuses that required slow, manual loading for their heavy five-inch guns, the majority of the screen was poorly equipped to do anything but put a barrage of steel in front of the approaching dive bombers. Even with radar on several ships, the shifting range and three-dimensional shift required as the battleline turned away made engaging targets guesswork for many of the older ships. As evidenced by their bursts being off in range and height, many of the anti-aircraft officers guessed wrong.
All of this changed as the AA cruiser Atlanta, tucked in close to the battleline’s starboard side, erupted like a sea-going volcano. With her massive battery of sixteen five-inch guns firing under advanced radar control and each of her shells equipped with proximity, rather than timed, fuses, there was little guesswork involved in her actions. As Greenman watched, the cruiser’s guns beginning to immediately take effect, with two of the unfortunately named Suisei bombers resembling their namesakes as they fell out of the Japanese formation. There were several cheers before Arizona’s own guns began to belatedly fire, the eight single 5-inchers barking as Greenman felt the deck heel under his feet.
Nothing can survive that storm, Greenman thought.
The intelligence officer was somewhat right. Exploding in bright flashes or bursting into flames from hits to their unprotected fuel tanks, sixteen of the approaching dive bombers did not make it to their push over points. A further six were forced to jettison their bombs, the pilots frantically trying to hold their aircraft together. But in the awful equation of warfare, there were simply too many bombers for the limited number of guns to stop.
Leading the surviving dive bombers was Akagi’s squadron commander, Lieutenant Takehiko Chihaya. Immediately realizing the deadly execution that the Atlanta was wreaking on the strike group, he pushed over from twelve thousand feet and led his seven surviving bombers down towards the small light cruiser. One of Kaga’s chutai, their squadron leader dead, followed Chihaya in his attack, one of their number exploding from a 1.1-inch shell just after bunting over.
The nine remaining bombers followed each other with dive brakes extended, the Atlanta swelling before them. Her maneuver options limited, the anti-aircraft cruiser threw over her helm at the last moment in an attempt to evade the attack. Chihaya, his bomber the focal point of most small arms fire, missed close to starboard with his pair of 500-lb. bombs. Not a total loss, the two explosions sprang open the cruiser’s seams and killed several of her exposed crew.
Even as the Atlanta was shuddering from the two near misses, the next two Suisei succeeded where their squadron leader had failed. Chihaya’s wingman would have also missed if not for the cruiser’s mainmast. As the first of the two 500-lb. bombs exploded to port, the second semi-armor pier
cing weapon, the bomb exploded as it hit the jutting structure, nearly slicing it in two. The explosion’s fragments knifed through the Atlanta’s gunnery director, killing everyone in that structure, as well as scything down many of the 1.1-inch anti-aircraft crews. Below, the radar screen immediately went black as the Atlanta was blinded.
The startled and shaken cruiser’s captain did not even realize his ship’s predicament before the third Suisei’s payload arrived amidships. The first bomb, armed with a semi armor-piercing fuse, passed diagonally all the way down to the forward engine room before exploding. The second hit further aft and to starboard, destroying the light cruiser’s No. 2 boiler room in a gout of steam that cooked the occupants at their post. The combined blast whipped the AA cruiser like a rat in a terrier’s grasp, depriving her of power and opening her port side and bottom to the sea. Like a man savagely stabbed in the heart shortly after being punched in the head, the cruiser suddenly staggered and began losing speed.
The stagger indirectly saved the vessel’s life, the sudden motion throwing off the next three bombers in a flurry of near misses. Correcting on the fly, only the last dive bomber managed to correctly aim its weapons. Both bombs hit far astern, with one exploding atop the cruiser’s No. 7 turret and the second passing down through the stern and detonating on its way out of the ship. Ablaze, with steam and smoke pouring from her midsection, the Atlanta heeled violently to port towards the battleships she was screening.
