Voyages of the Seventh Carrier

by Peter Albano

  “I knew Chuichi Nagumo. I went to school with him. He was a fool – could not win at kendo, let alone war.” The old Japanese waved at white fuselages glinting high above. “Our CAP and we have four scouts searching.”

  “It would be awkward to be caught by the Brooklyn with our air groups gone,” Allen said.

  “True,” Fujita conceded. “But we have our escorts and can still put up twenty-seven fighters, eighteen dive bombers and fifteen torpedo planes.”

  The American admiral nodded grimly but remained silent.

  Fujita glanced at his watch. “Gentlemen,” he said slowly. “Now we wait.”

  *

  Approaching the Libyan coast, Commander Matsuhara was not impressed by the shimmering blue beauty of the sea glinting just a few meters beneath his fuselage. Instead, free of his parachute straps, he turned his head constantly in the timeless ritual of the fighter pilot: first ahead and above to the blue vault marred by a few high clouds; then to the left and behind, glimpsing Lieutenant Takamura hard on his port elevator and in the distance the mass of Ariga’s bombers and fighters assigned to the strike on Al Kararim; and finally to his right where he found his other wingman, NAP Kojima and his own air groups ordered to attack Misratah.

  And he wondered about the enemy. Was this a trap? Would fighters rain from the high cumulus clouds now clearly visible on the horizon? The DC-6. Did it send its SOS? It had radar. Certainly, it had been shot down in seconds. But nothing was certain in war. Many clever minds were planning against them.

  His tachometer showed nineteen hundred rpms. A quick adjustment brought the finely-pitched propeller down to seventeen fifty. Then, he gave the Sakae all the manifold pressure it could take. Vibrating, the engine complained for a moment, then settled down to its usual steady roar.

  A brown bar on the horizon brought his head up sharply. The coast. Waggling his wings, he slashed the air in front of his eyes twice with a flat palm, repeating the signal until all section leaders picked it up and duplicated it. Then, he pushed his throtde forward gently and pulled back on his stick. He was riding a familiar elevator, feeling a visceral heaviness. Quickly, the white altimeter needle ticked off hectometers as the little fighter’s airfoils caught the offshore breeze sending it skyward like a hawk hunting a ridge.

  A cough, and a backfire sent his eyes to the fuel gauges. Switching to his fuselage tank, he pulled a lever releasing his external tank, sending it tumbling with dozens of others.

  Now, beneath him, he caught the coastline, white breakers and the black strip of a coastal road. And there were cars, a bus, a few cyclists and clusters of houses nestling green fields. Inland, animals grazed on scrubby growth and the terrain became a monotonous plain of brown and gray hues.

  And people. Some waved. Yoshi laughed. Then became somber as he eyed the horizon cluttered with wind-driven clouds. A desert storm? Certainly, in the far distance, there was the lethal mountain of a thunderhead, top painted all the colors of the morning sun, underside dark with infinite shades of gray. A killer. Flashing with lightning. A place of wing-breaking drafts. The enemy would not hide there. But there were other clouds. Strato-cumulus and cirrus now. Ambush would come from these or the sun. The sun. An old saying he had heard in flight school rang through his mind. Beware of the killer in the sun. But there were no specks; nothing glinted up-sun.

  Four thousand meters. He leveled off. Then, looking down over his right wing, he saw a long white slash in the dull brown terrain. Moving his stick to the right, he dropped his starboard wing. Now, buildings were visible and many crosses lined up in rows. Joyfully, he realized they had taken the enemy by surprise.

  It was time. He reached for his microphone. Changed his mind. Waggling his wings, he stabbed a finger downward. Instantly, section leaders repeated his signal. Then, like great green birds of prey, the Aichis and Nakajimas lumbered toward the strip. Now!

  Pulling the microphone to his lips, he shouted, “Tora, tora, tora!”

  And Ariga’s voice came back. “Tora, tora, toral”

  Despite the surprise, Matsuhara was uneasy. Eyeing the clouds, he finally yielded to the fighter pilot’s insatiable hunger for altitude. Pulling back on the stick, he led the patrol higher until the altimeter read forty-five hundred meters.

  A flash below his right wingtip caught his eye. The Aichis were diving. Already, a hangar was burning and bombs were bursting like great red flowers, blossoming debris and chunks of concrete. And the AA was awake. Flashing on the perimeter of the field, automatic weapons sent garlands of glaring lights looping through the bombers, filling the sky with silver and red trails. Suddenly, ugly black and brown puffs scarred the sky like a virulent pox as heavy guns erupted to life in a great circle around the field. Then hundreds of small black puffs surrounded the field in wispy clouds as falling forty millimeter shells self-destructed.

  In the distance, the flight leader could see smoke rising from A; Kararim as Ariga’s groups went to the attack. But his eyes returned to his target, Misratah.

  Braving an obstacle course of explosions, fire and shrapnel, enemy fighters were attempting to take off. A kick to the left rudder pedal and a quick move of the stick dropped his port wing. Staring down, Yoshi saw an Arab fighter explode on the strip. Another cartwheel into a burning transport. But two or three were in the air. An Aichi trailed fearsome yellow plume. Became a meteor, arching up and then down, bursting in the desert in a great explosion of red and orange.

  Now, perhaps, a dozen enemy fighters were airborne, adding their tracers to the AA pockmarking the sky. Struck by a large caliber shell, a Nakajima became a great ball of flame, sending hundreds of smoking tentacles earthward. Anxiously, Matsuhara watched as Messerschmitts climbed into the bomber stream sending three more Nakajimas plummeting toward the holocaust they had ignited.

  Punching his instrument panel, Yoshi brought his eyes up. The sky belonged to the Zero. Bringing the microphone to his lips, he shouted, “This is Edo Leader. Edo Green, Yellow, Blue and Orange, engage enemy fighters attacking our bombers. The other sections will remain with me!” Four acknowledgments rasped in his ears. “Execute!”

  Instantly, twelve Zeros rolled into dives and streaked toward the melee while eleven white monoplanes continued trailing Matsuhara in a great counterclockwise ellipse.

  Takamura’s voice shocked him like a high voltage coil. “Fighters… bearing two-two-zero… low!” Acknowledging, Matsuhara brought the fighter to the bearing and found a gaggle of specks directly ahead and below his cowl.

  “This is Edo Leader—” he said calmly, “follow me and engage fighters bearing two-two-zero.”

  Without glancing at the trailing sections, the commander punched the throttle to overboost and brought his range finder to the enemy fighters which loomed much larger.

  He found a strange collection of aircraft. The leaders were single-engined Messerschmitts, but in the distance twin-engined aircraft could be seen. ME-110s? JU-88s? DC-3s? It made no difference to a samurai. They were the enemy. Nothing else mattered.

  Closing at a combined speed of, perhaps, seven hundred knots, the enemy loomed clear quickly. There were a dozen Messerschmitts in the leading flight, and they were obviously attacking in pairs.

  The leader was winking at him. Tracers smoked but dropped under his fuselage. Yoshi snorted. The enemy filled only one ring of the range finder. Too far. Too far. Maybe a thousand meters. But at this speed, a thousand meters was a wink. Suddenly, the 109 filled three rings of the range finder. The commander pushed the red button.

  There were the usual delicious vibrations. But he was hub to hub with the enemy. There was no time. Pulling back on the stick, the belly of a Zero almost scraped the enemy who flashed past spraying coolant and smoke.

  To his left, an Arab shot straight up, rolled, shed a wing and cartwheeled toward the ground. Then a Zero exploded.

  Pulling back on the stick, the commander felt the usual dimming effects of gravity. Shaking his head at the top of his loop, he gave th
e fighter hard left rudder and pushed his stick forward, taking the sections through a quick Immelmann turn.

  He laughed out loud as he found the Arab fighters only midway through their turns. “Never turn with a Zero,” he shouted into the slipstream.

  A canopy filled his sights. Ten rounds of twenty millimeter made a slaughterhouse of the cockpits. The Messerschmitt dropped into a flat spin. More enemy fighters tumbled from the sky; burning, disintegrating.

  Again, Matsuhara turned, but this time he saw four surviving enemy fighters in the distance, fleeing north and diving toward the sea. He exulted, “Banzai! Banzair

  Looking down at the field, he found a sea of burning hangars, fuel and aircraft. And everywhere, Aichis and Nakajimas continued to bomb and strafe while in the distance, Zeros pursued surviving enemy fighters out over the desert.

  But more specks, closing slowly, brought the commander’s eyes up. More Arab planes were closing from the original sighting while others dropped from the clouds.

  “Edo, Edo, this is Edo Leader – reform on me and engage enemy aircraft bearing two-zero-zero, altitude three thousand – follow my lead!”

  Pulling the stick back, Matsuhara saw the horizon drop off below his starboard wing and felt the propeller bite into the turbulence, vibrating and rocketing the small fighter upward. Glancing to his sides and rearview mirrors, the commander found his wingmen and eight other Mitsubishis exactly where he had expected them. Smiling, he squinted at the slow-moving enemy formations, which straggled toward him with little evidence of the discipline shown by the Messerschmitts.

  Now, the enemy was below him and Matsuhara flattened his climb and led his sections in a great sweeping turn, leveling off behind and above the first group of aircraft. He whisded. There must be thirty aircraft, flying loosely in two groups of fifteen.

  Now, they were up-sun but the new altitude had brought frost to his windshield. Cursing, the air group leader brushed the windshield with gloved fingers but only managed to scratch a few trails in the white film. Then a cloud made a blind man of him. Grimacing and calling on Amaterasu, he pushed the stick forward, bursting into sunlight in seconds. Then, looking down past the leading edge of his port wing, he found the Arabs. He could not believe his eyes: DC-3s, JU-88s, a trainer or two, and three aircraft he did not recognize but were definitely civilian.

  “Edo from Edo Leader, banzai!”

  Matsuhara pulled his nose back and watched the cloud-lined horizon drop out of the world. Then, with his Zeros holding tight formation, he split-essed down, rolling into a dive, Sakae shrieking like a demon.

  Now, he saw organization. The enemy was flying in two rough box-like formations of 15 planes each; one box slighdy behind and above the other. And the first box was already in range of the field. Yoshi looked for Zeros of the green, yellow, orange and blue sections. But there were none. He cursed. They must be off chasing down enemy stragglers. Glory hunters!

  Horrified, he watched as the leading Arabs blossomed with strange orange glows sending torrents of tracers to rip two Aichis like a child crushes a kite. Gatlings. Must be those new Gatlings Colonel Bernstein and Admiral Allen warned them about.

  “Edo from Edo Leader. We will dive through the enemy’s formations. Pick your targets.” He released his wingmen. “Individual combat.”

  He brought his range finder to the fuselage of a DC-3. He saw turrets. Flashes. Tracers streamed by. He held his fire until the enemy filled two rings. Then he punched the button. Saw his cannon shells march up the enemy’s back, ripping off pieces of aluminum and sending them flaking into the slipstream. Then the top turret dissolved and the hammerblows crept forward, shattering the cockpit and creating a snowstorm of splintered metal and plexiglas.

  Now, he had passed his target, diving through the box. And they were firing at him with their gatlings, twelve millimeter and seven point seven millimeter machine guns mounted in cargo doors and turrets. Some were even firing from windows. There were so many tracers crossing and crisscrossing he felt like a man caught in a burning beehive.

  “Madmen! Madmen!” he shouted. “They must be Sabbah.”

  Then he was clear and dropping on the lower box. And Zeros were skimming in from the surrounding desert. He filled his sights with a JU-88. A quick burst ripped off a wing, spilling entrails of colored wires, broken hydraulic piping and fuel lines. Flaming, the big plane exploded on the tarmac.

  The burning field was reaching for him. Pulling back on the stick, he screamed through clenched teeth as the forces of gravity tore at his viscera, sucked blood from his brain. Now, he was so low he expected to scrape concrete. He smelled burning petrol. His? No! It was coming from the tortured strip. Shaking his head, he brought the Mitsubishi into a streaking climb. Returning from their pursuits, Zeros of the Green, Yellow, Blue and Orange sections climbed with him.

  And they were climbing into a flaming slaughterhouse as Zeros ripped through the formations of slow-moving aircraft. The commander shouted into his microphone, “This is Edo Leader. Bombers retire. Edo, continue engaging. Destroy all enemy aircraft!”

  Within a minute, Matsuhara shot down a civilian aircraft that actually had riflemen firing from its windows and an old American AT6 trainer armed with a pitiful single seven point seven millimeter machine gun in the rear cockpit. And then, suddenly, there were no more targets. Radio discipline broke down as pilot after pilot shouted “Banzai!”

  Matsuhara pulled the microphone to his lips and then hesitated, looking down, circling away from the field and toward the sea. Nothing moved. Burning planes were everywhere: piled in front of the shattered hangars, on the tarmac, even in their rivetments.

  “Ariga!” he finally shouted into the microphone. “Report!”

  “Mission completed,” came back, triumphantly. More “Banzais.”

  “This is Edo Leader. Edo, reform on me.” Quickly, eight Zeros massed behind Commander Matsuhara. Slowly, the little fighters headed for the sea, the climbing desert sun reflecting from their fuselages in a bloody red glow.

  *

  It was just minutes after the Misratah and Al Kararim strike groups had disappeared over the southern horizon when the dreaded call, “Unidentified highspeed vessels,” was broadcast by Yonaga’s scout searching the northeastern quadrant. The communications officer, Lieutenant J. G. Nobu Yonai, himself, rushed to the bridge with the details.

  Standing before Admiral Fujita, Admiral Mark Allen, Colonel Bernstein and Ensign Ross, the lieutenant made his report. “Eight unidentified vessels, bearing zero-nine-five, true… range eighty kilometers… closing at a high speed. Strong incoming radar signals, sir.”

  “Sacred Buddha!” Fujita exclaimed. “We should have them on radar soon. Return to your duties and keep a close watch.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Fujita spoke to the talker: “Sound the general alarm. Inform the gunnery officer of a possible surface engagement. All five inch guns prepare to fire armor-piercing shells. Air groups prepare for launch. To the signal bridge, make a hoist. ‘Surface engagement and I am launching aircraft.’”

  The familiar honking of claxons filled the ship and in minutes, all stations reported manned and ready. And the officers and men on the bridge grabbed their helmets, shrugged their way into life jackets.

  Adjusting his chin strap, Mark Allen said, “You can’t engage the Brooklyn on the surface, Admiral. She has fifteen six-inch guns. She can hit you at eighteen thousand yards – has radar and centralized fire control.” He palmed his helmet. “Lord, he outranges you by two thousand yards, and you’ll fire over open sights.”

  Fujita studied the distressed American. “We are in the worst possible situation. Most of our air groups are gone and will return in, perhaps, five hours. We must engage the cruiser because we cannot outrun her and recover our air groups.” Holding his binoculars against his chest, he fingered them restlessly. “Only an air raid could make the situation worse.”

  The words were prophetic. “Scout Number One reports m
any bogies bearing one-six-zero… range three hundred kilometers… closing at two hundred knots.”

  “Radar?” Fujita shouted.

  “Nothing on air search,” the talker answered. “But surface search reports eight blips just came on the scope bearing zero-nine-five… range sixty kilometers… closing at a high speed.”

  “That’s only thirty-six miles,” Brent said.

  There was a roar of engines. Glancing at the flight deck, Brent saw the engines come to life on 18 zeros, 18 Aichis and 15 Nakajimas.

  Again, to the talker, “Inform the air group commander to attack the Brooklyn with his D3As and B5Ns. His Zero-zens are to intercept the air raid closing from one-six-zero. We will keep our CAP of nine Zeros over the carrier.” He punched the screen. “Expedite! Expedite!” He took a deep breath. “Come to zero-four-five, all ahead full. Stand by to launch. To the signal bridge, Destroyer Division Two, prepare for torpedo attack.”

  As the great carrier steadied on her new course, air crews rushed to their idling aircraft, cheering. Brent knew the new course would close Yonaga on the enemy cruiser even faster. But with the wind from the northeast, Fujita had no choice. Anyway, Brent sensed the old Japanese wanted to sight the enemy. Fight him with his aircraft but on the surface, too. There was a roar of an overboosted engine and the first Zero was airborne. But it would take thirty minutes to launch and by then it was possible the Brooklyn's foretop would be sighted as she “ascended” over the earth’s curvature. And the screen had changed – one destroyer trailed, three led, but the three equipped with torpedoes had formed a column and were bearing eastward.

  The talker spoke. “Combat Intelligence requests permission to break radio silence.”

  Fujita pondered. “Very well. Contact the escorts on ‘bridge to bridge.’ Destroyer Division Two is to maintain a patrol off my starboard beam, one thousand meters until I commit them.”

  “That air raid must have originated in Benghazi,” Bernstein said.

  Fujita took a pair of dividers to a chart mounted on a small stand bolted to the windscreen. “Four hundred fifty kilometers.”