by Peter Albano
“You know we are not authorized to speak to that," Allen said.
“But your Captain Stafford spoke of the International Military Tribunal For the Far East, of the executions of Generals Tojo, Yamashita and Homma.” The Japanese focused grimly on the Americans.
Brent knew Mark Allen had to respond. He sensed evasion could lead to a violent reaction. Mark Allen spoke, “True. Those events are history. But, speaking for myself and expressing a personal opinion only, I would not expect unilateral action to be taken against Yonaga by the United States."
“No? Why not?"
“World Opinion, Admiral. World Opinion is important to a democracy. Don’t forget, we have a president in the White House, not a Kadafi or Khomeini.” Fujita raised an eyebrow questioningly. “I mean a Hitler or Mussolini." Fujita nodded. Allen continued. “I would imagine the United States will refer action to the UN or World Court or both.”
“Then you believe action can be taken against my command.”
“Do you expect less, Admiral?" For a long moment, the rasping breathing of the old men and the whine of blowers were the only sounds in the cabin.
“No. I expect punitive actions – even by the Japanese government which is apparently in the hands of women and ronin.”
“As military men, we are accountable, Admiral.”
“True, Admiral Allen. But only I gave orders. Only I am accountable. Remember the American trinity of command.” The Americans exchanged a glance. “But that reasoning is not acceptable?”
“I’m afraid not. That reasoning didn’t work at Nuremberg.”
“For the Germans?”
“Yes. For the Germans.”
Fujita turned to Captain Kawamoto. “Masao-san!” Kawamoto struggled to his feet, came to bent attention. “Put up our CAP. If there is no wind, use both catapults.” Allen began to rise. Fujita halted him with a wave and continued, his words coming in rapid-fire. “Three Zero-sens at one thousand meters and at best fuel economy. And I want five port and five starboard one hundred twenty-seven millimeter ready guns. Also, four port and four starboard twenty-five millimeter machine gun mounts. Alert bow and stem mounts. Set readiness status two. No liberty and no more visitors without my permission. Load as much fresh food as possible. Bring up all boilers to five hundred psi.”
Captain Kawamoto eyed his commanding officer. He spoke slowly and deliberately.
“Boilers four and nine are down for cleaning and maintenance.”
“Very well. We still have fourteen left – can do thirty knots”
A shadow crossed Kawamoto’s face. “I would not recommend the catapults.”
“Why not?”
“The airframes. Two crew chiefs warned me this morning of britdeness – metal fatigue. They fear that some aircraft cannot take the explosive acceleration.” Fujita’s face was a book of thoughts. “Sacred Buddha!” Bent fingers drummed the desk. “If we cannot use our flight deck, double the number of ready guns.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“What is the strength of the wind?”
Instantly, and with surprising agility, the old executive officer moved to the communications equipment, placing a phone to his ear. After a quick conversation, he turned to the admiral, “Ten knots, sir.”
“Good enough. Launch!” Cradling the phone, Kawamoto turned to the door.
As the executive officer exited, Mark Allen spoke, voice filled with disbelief. “You can’t declare war on the world.”
Fujita stared, eyes smoky lamps. “Not one man… not one man will be touched.”
“You’re premature, Admiral. No jets can fly. There’s no threat.”
“Perhaps. But there must be thousands of aircraft which are not jets. True?”
“True. But not military, Admiral. You’ll send fighters down a one thousand foot runway into a ten knot wind for this?”
“Yes. Even transports can be fitted with bombs. The commanding officer of an aircraft carrier cannot assume anything. This vessel,” he crooked a finger, “is the most volatile on earth. And you know that.”
Brent saw hopelessness in Admiral Allen's eyes. But the young ensign knew Fujita was correct – had no other options. Yonaga, loaded with bombs, torpedos and gasoline, was capable of a Vesuvian eruption and every man knew it.
Allen spoke. “At least inform the port captain and local airfields of your readiness condition – your free-fire zone because that's what you're establishing with a CAP.”
“We do not have those frequencies.”
“You can contact the Maritime Self Defense Force.” Revulsion crossed the old man’s face and for a moment, Brent thought Fujita would vomit. “Very well. I will contact my communications officer, Commander Fujimoto.” Within seconds, the admiral had shouted instructions into his phone and then slammed it into its cradle. “For your information,” he said slowly, turning to Mark Allen, “twin engine aircraft have been spotted taking off and landing at Tokyo Airport.” “Probably old C-Forty-Sevens,” Allen offered. And then squaring his jaw. “They’re old transports. No threat. And let me remind you, hostile acts provoke hostile acts. Don't incite an incident, Admiral.”
“You are telling me what to do again.”
“Yes. Your actions are unnecessary and ill-advised, Admiral.”
Brent studied the old Oriental, and the flat blank face revealed nothing. But again, there was a quick change in mood. In fact, he was strangely conciliatory. “Perhaps. But this command has survived nearly a half century despite my decisions.” Hironaka smirked. And then firmly, “I repeat — we will not be surprised.”
Before Mark Allen could respond, Captain Masao Kawamoto’s metallic, amplified voice powered from the speaker, filling the compartment. “Fellow samurai. We have returned to a world of treachery. As samurai, we are ever watchful – alert. We have new orders of the day – starboard one hundred twenty-seven millimeter guns one, five, seven, eleven and port one hundred twenty-seven millimeter guns two, six, ten and twelve are ready guns. Also, starboard twenty-five millimeter mounts three, five, thirteen, fifteen and port mounts four, eight, fourteen and eighteen are ready guns. Bow and stern twenty-five millimeter mounts are also at condition one. A CAP of three Zeros will take off immediately – first flight will be Commander Yoshi Matsuhara and his wingmen Lieutenant Tetsu Takamura and Naval Air Pilot First Class Hitoshi Kojima. Pressure will be brought up to five hundred psi in all boilers except four and nine. There will be no liberty or visitors until further notice. I expect readiness reports from all department heads by seventeen hundred hours. New watch, station and quarters bills will be posted in all mess halls by sixteen hundred hours. Commander Matsuhara, Lieutenant Takamura and NAP First Class Kojima meet with me in Ready Room Three, gallery deck in ten minutes. Readiness status two throughout the ship. Duty sections and ready gun crews muster at your stations.” There was a hum followed by a click and the speaker fell silent.
“Jesus Christ,” Brent Ross muttered under his breath, waiting for the angry sounds of rebellion. There were none. But the sounds of feet thumping on decks and clattering on ladders were added to the ubiquitous sigh of fans and rumble of auxiliary engines. He moved his eyes to the admiral and found the rheumy brown slits fixed on his. There was quiet humor stirring at the corners of the eyes.
“You expect a mutiny, Ensign?”
“I don’t know what to expect of Yonaga, Admiral.” The admiral’s laugh was slow and spasmodic like rain splashing from an eave. “Nowhere is there a crew like this! Nowhere!” He gestured to the door. “Come. Let us watch the launch.”
Brent Ross and Mark Allen rose quickly. Standing behind his chair, Brent watched apprehensively as the old admiral placed both hands on the oak and pushed, struggling to his feet. Impulsively, Brent leaned forward but was restrained by Mark Allen’s hand. Slowly and stiffly, the old man straightened and then walked around his desk and approached the door, uniform hanging from his skeletal body. He looked like an animated corpse. And he was not more than five feet tal
l. Brent was astonished by the amount of strength that could be packed into such a frail body. Slowly, Allen and Ross followed Fujita to the door. Hironaka, writing with stiff fingers, remained seated.
Chapter IV
Exiting on the flag bridge behind the two admirals, Ross found himself on a platform high on the superstructure, giving him an unobstructed view of the flight deck and most of the carrier’s weather decks. Yonaga was a beehive. Orders rasped from speakers, boatswains’ pipes shrilled, men shouted, boots thudded up and down ladders. Moving to the rail and looking down, Brent Ross could see crewmen racing across the flight deck; handlers swarming aft where the last of three Zeros were being pushed from the aft elevator, tied down and chocked.
Quickly, crew chiefs settled into cockpits and began control checks while fuel was pumped into wing and fuselage tanks from hand-pulled bousers. Armorers swarmed; some feeding belts of seven-point-seven millimeter ammunition into wells just forward of the cockpit while others loaded boxes of twenty millimeter shells next to wing-mounted cannons. Turning his head and looking forward, Brent could see fire-fighting crews and medical personnel along with the yellow-clad flight director who waited patiendy, leaning on a twenty-five millimeter gun tub, flags at his side. And everywhere helmeted gunners in green battle dress ran to mounts, loaded their weapons and cranked them skyward, the harsh clang of brass on steel resounding as five inch shells were rammed into breeches. To his left, a “talker” plugged his headset into a receptacle and spoke into his mouthpiece. Another rating handed the officers binoculars.
Palming his binoculars, Fujita turned to the Americans. He suddenly appeared in high spirits; almost jovial. “The Zero is light – no armor, no self-sealing tanks. Those things are for those ‘flying sake-bottles’ with no wings you Americans call fighters.”
Allen spoke to Ross. “He means the Gruman F Four F Wildcat.” He turned to the admiral. “And it was called ‘the flying beer bottle,’ Admiral Fujita.”
“It makes no difference. It was as overweight as a middle-aged sumo wrestler.” He stabbed a finger at the flight deck. “The Zero is the most versatile fighter on earth. In this wind, that run is more than adequate” He moved the finger aft. “Those nine hundred fifty horsepower Sakaes can pull them into the sky in a hundred fifty meters – I mean four-hundred fifty feet – even in this wind.” He was interrupted by shouts from the foretop. The talker turned to the admiral and spoke quickly. Bringing his binoculars to his eyes and focusing to the north, the old man said, “Aircraft, bearing three-five-five, elevation twenty degrees.”
Brent Ross focused his glasses. “Admiral. That’s an old C-47. It’s probably older than this ship.”
“He had better stay clear or he will not grow older.”
“You wouldn’t,” Allen said.
“Oh, yes – I would.” There was no humor.
The ensign dropped his glasses to his waist, gripped the windscreen with white knuckles and cursed under his breath. Then, for the first time, he noticed an absence of boats. Only two Self Defense Force patrol craft circled about one thousand yards from the ship. He swung his glasses to the southwest, focused on the harbor at Yokosuka. Here he found the throngs, crowding piers, standing everywhere: on cranes, warehouses, waving banners and flags.
Fujita turned to the talker, shouted an order. In a moment, “Pilots, man your planes,” barked through the ship’s public address system. Instantly, three figures in brown flight suits broke from the aft part of the island and raced for the planes. Each wore a fur-lined helmet with ear flaps and goggles up, a scarf and a white band around his helmet; and each was burdened with a clipboard and parachute. Two of the three wore swords.
Mark Allen turned to the ensign. “The white bands are hachimachi headbands. It shows the pilot’s determination to die for the emperor.”
A feeling of unreality crept through Brent like a cold fog. He stared at Mark Allen and nodded numbly. A roar of engines, cold and coughing to life, turned his head. The pilots were in their cockpits, gunning the Sakaes. Brent could see Commander Yoshi Matsuhara in the cockpit of the lead plane checking his instruments. The pilot looked up. Even at three hundred feet, Brent could feel the man’s eyes. It was like looking at a cobra. Brent was surprised to see the man suddenly punch his fire wall in anger.
“Launch aircraft,” bellowed from the public address system.
*
When Commander Yoshi Matsuhara heard the command, “Pilots, man your planes,” he had been standing next to the island, aft, with his wingmen Lieutenant Tetsu Takamura and NAP First Class Hitoshi Kojima. They had just finished a briefing by Captain Masao Kawamoto. The old fool had stumbled through the meeting, pulling fragmented thoughts from his senile brain. But they understood that they were a fully armed CAP, code named “Edo One;” that they were to circle the ship, “Iceman,” on a five kilometer radius at an altitude of 3,000 meters, on a lean mixture, tachometer readings of 2,000 rpms and a speed of 140 knots.
As Matsuhara raced across the deck, cursing his bouncing parachute, sword and clipboard, he could see his old crew chief, Shoishi Ota, seated in the cockpit of the A6M2, making his last cockpit check – a check the pilot knew included safety belt, instruments, oxygen supply, canopy lock, brakes, hydraulics, and radio. By the time the aviator rounded the wing, Shoishi was clambering out of the cockpit and the fueling crew and armorers were pulling their carts to the elevator.
Stepping from the wing and pulling on the hand grip below the canopy, the pilot passed the crew chief who dropped to the deck, cat-like. “She is ready,” the crew chief shouted, staring up and moving forward. Lowering himself into the cockpit – a narrow prison only slightly larger than his body – the pilot grunted.
After snapping his seatbelt lock and assuring himself the canopy was locked in the open take-off position, Yoshi released the brake and then pushed hard on the pedal until he felt the lock snap on. Quickly, he moved the stick forward and backward and side to side, turning his head while pushing the rudder pedals, grunting approval as ailerons, rudder and elevators responded. Then, after dropping his flaps to twenty-two degrees and retracting them, he switched on his magnetos. Instantly, the instruments sprang to life. Instinctively, his hand moved to the throttle and set it slightly ahead. Looking down and to his right, he could see Ota, well clear of the propeller, circling a single finger over his head. Matsuhara acknowledged with the same signal.
The commander punched the fuel booster and starter. Coming to life with a volley of bangs, hard coughs and sputters, the engine shook the airframe and jerked the three-bladed propeller stiffly. Suddenly, there was a salvo that sent the blades spinning in a blur. Within a minute, the faltering stopped as all fourteen cylinders began firing and warming, and the engine settled down into the familiar uneven roaring sound of the warming Sakae engine.
Yoshi’s eyes darted to the instrument panel: tachometer reading 2300 rpms, oil temperature 20 degrees, manifold pressure 60 centimeters of mercury. Smiling, he throttled back to idle, checked his tachometer again and glanced in his side view mirrors at his wingmen, Takamura and Kojima. Both were giving the thumbs-up signal. They were the best. Graduates of Tsuchiura, the finest flight training facility on earth, they both had over seven hundred hours before receiving their wings. Yoshi smiled, knowing Americans were sent into combat with only four hundred hours.
He moved his eyes to the flag bridge. There was the admiral flanked by two of the Americans. The young one, Ensign Ross, stared down at him with those hard, unflinching, gun-metal eyes. That young one was big, strong like his father, Ted “Trigger” Ross. He had hated that barbarian. He was glad the American was dead. But his son exuded ominous signals like a man mad for vengeance yet capable of great restraint. He was a menace. A danger to the admiral and Yonaga. But already the old Admiral seemed to be as attached to the Ensign as he had been to his father.
Would the long conversations begin again? They were all lonely, crazy to see their families and sick of each other after forty-two y
ears and found strange ears refreshing. He would like to challenge the round-eyed filth-eater. Especially after Captain Takahashi Aogi had told him of his family’s fate. His wife, Sumiko, and sons, Masakei and Hisaya, roasted to cinders in Tokyo by a great American incendiary raid. Bombers called B29s flying from Saipan, Tinian and Guam had ignited the wood and paper city on the night 9 March 1945.
Shocked, he had pressed Aogi for every detail. Some American General named Curtis E. LeMay, commanding the Twenty-First Bomber Command, had ordered the raid using new tactics and a new bomb. Approaching at low level, the planes dropped thousands of seventy pound canisters filled with jellied gasoline called napalm which stuck to everything: wood, metal and flesh. Three hundred thirty-four bombers, each carrying six tons of the hideous bombs, attacked the heart of the residential area of the capital. A fire storm of over 1,800 degrees exploded. Water boiled in the canals. As the fire fed on itself, people not only burned to death, some actually suffocated as well. Over 83,000 died. Yoshi grunted in fury, punched the fire wall.
General Curtis E. LeMay: he had devised the low level tactics. The savage. He would remember that name. But Ensign Brent Ross was close. He would wait his chance, challenge the American. Enjoy a samurai’s vengeance as had the forty-seven ronin.
A flash of yellow attracted his eye. The plane director, waving. Glancing at his instruments, Yoshi found the oil temperature at 50 degrees and the vibrations evened-out as oil warmed, metal expanded and valves opened and closed at designed tolerances.
The pilot stabbed a thumb upward. Rigidly, the plane director held both flags overhead. Matsuhara felt the fighter tremble as the tie-downs were released. Without turning his head, he knew four handlers were racing for the sides of the deck, tumbling into their catwalks. Now, only two men manned the chocks while two others held his wing tips, steadying the plane and checking the locks.
