Paul checked the man's equipment. The uniform was worn thin and in tatters. It was a far cry from what he and the others were wearing. It was still above freezing, but the air was damp and chill, just what his mother referred to as perfect pneumonia weather. This poor Jap must have been freezing, which might have thrown off his aim.
The slowdown in the American advance had permitted rear-echelon units to move closer to the front, and the men had actually been able to warm up in a tent with a portable stove the other day. Paul wondered when the dead boy had last been warm.
The young man's footwear was as bad as the rest of his gear. The soles of his boots had worn through and been replaced by pieces of wood. Paul looked at his own combat boots and wet-weather gear. He was dry and fairly comfortable. How the hell had the dead boy even been able to function? Again, it was information to send back to battalion.
A couple of men had checked the Jap's mouth and pronounced in disgust that there were no gold fillings. Paul felt a queasiness in his gut and walked away. He found refuge behind a bush and puked everything that was in his stomach, including what might have been left of that hot chicken dinner. He heaved until his stomach hurt and then his body shook. He had just killed a man and the reaction had set in.
Finally, he got control of himself and rejoined his men. Mackensen looked at him sympathetically. "You okay, sir?"
Paul chose to lie. "I'm fine."
"Your first?"
Paul took a mouthful of water from a canteen, swirled it around his mouth to cleanse it of the taste of bile, then spat it out. "Yeah. It shows, doesn't it?" He was slightly ashamed of his reaction in front of the rocklike first sergeant.
"Well, sir, that puts you one up on me," the first sergeant said with undisguised admiration. "That was damned good shooting and great hunting."
Paul thought Mackensen was kidding. His first sergeant had to have killed scores of the enemy. But then, who knew whether you actually killed or not? Many times Paul's men had blazed away at an unseen enemy, or in the general direction where they thought the Japs were. The results were impersonal and generally unknown. This type of killing was unique.
The only other times they'd actually seen the Japs they'd killed were during that banzai charge and when they'd taken out that bunkered-in tank.
"Thanks, top," Paul said, and managed a grin. "That means a lot coming from you." He saw looks of undisguised admiration on the others in the area. 1st Lt. Paul Morrell was a killer. Killer Morrell had blown a Jap's ass out of a tree and saved their lives. With the GIs' sense of exaggeration, he knew the legend would grow and have him shooting a score of Japs out of a score of trees and with only six bullets. Well, the only life he was certain he'd saved was his own.
Paul recalled Ruger's comment about his not firing during that earlier Jap attack and how upset he'd been to realize it. Now, not only had he fired his carbine, but he'd killed with it. He would not, however, tell anyone that this was the first time he had actually fired his weapon in anger. Killer Morrell. He decided he sort of liked it. More important, if it gave his men more confidence in his abilities, then it was all to the good. All he had to do now was make sure he deserved that confidence.
PART FOUR
RESOLUTIONS
CHAPTER 63
SOUTH OF KYUSHU, THE POLISH POPE
Maj. Stan Kutchinski was furious. For the second time in the last three missions, an engine was acting up and he would have to abort the bombing run. As he looked down at the gray-black ocean almost twenty thousand feet below him, he cursed another missed opportunity. This should have been his sixteenth mission, but an oil leak in one of the B-29's four engines had changed all that.
Earlier in the war, he would have pressed on along with the other bombers in his command since the B-29 could easily fly with three, or even two, engines. But orders were orders, and in the case of mechanical failure, he was to turn back. It wasn't something he could hide, as the problem forced him to shut down one engine. Thus, he had turned back to base and relinquished command of the other bombers to his number two.
Kutchinski wasn't concerned about being considered a coward for aborting the mission. The twenty-five-year-old major had seen enough aerial combat to satisfy any requirement for bravery. Instead, he was upset about missing a chance to rack up another score toward getting to go home. As a means of pacifying rebellious young officers who wanted out of the war, the military had reinstated the policy of rotating bomber crews back to the States after twenty-five combat missions. Today would have been sixteen if his plane, the Polish Pope, hadn't decided to act up.
With sixteen in, he would have needed only nine more, and that would only have taken a few weeks, a month at the most. Back home, he might have been discharged and given the opportunity to latch onto one of the civilian airlines. Kutchinski was convinced that air travel was the thing of the future, and he wanted on board an airline as quickly as possible. At the worst, he would have been given a military job training other pilots and would still have had time to make contacts with the airlines.
Aborting bombing missions because of mechanical failure wasn't done because there was so much danger from the Japanese planes and guns. In fact, the runs weren't particularly dangerous at all anymore. Jap interceptors were almost nonexistent, although the occasional kamikaze would try to ram a B-29, and Japanese antiaircraft guns had been battered into mush by other bombers.
But mechanical failure was a solid reason to abort because of the possibility of having to bail out over Japan, where there was the overwhelming likelihood that they would be killed out of hand by the angry Japs. Kutchinski and his men had heard too many tales of Americans being literally ripped to pieces by Jap mobs. Sometimes he wondered if he could blame the Japs. On previous missions they had flown over the Kyushu battlefields and seen the clouds of smoke reaching thousands of feet into the sky from the blackened and ruined land. What was occurring below in that tragic inferno was scarcely imaginable. Then they thanked the gods that had permitted them to join the air force rather than the godforsaken infantry.
Kutchinski's real fear was that there'd be a general stand-down because of a lack of targets before he could reach twenty-five missions, and he'd wind up being stuck in the military for the rest of eternity. No matter how the pie was cut, there were now too many planes and too few targets. Today they were to have bombed a valley where the Japs might be hiding some soldiers. A valley? What the hell kind of a target was a valley? Then he'd decided that it would have been a good one if it had helped him get to that magic number twenty-five.
"Major?"
It was Sgt. Tom Franks, the belly gunner, calling on the intercom. "What is it?"
"Ship on the water below us."
Kutchinski grinned. "That's where ships are supposed to be, Sergeant." Like the others on the Polish Pope, Franks was an original member of the close-knit crew, and none of them thought too much of military discipline when they were in the air and away from the base.
"I know that, Major sir, but I've been watching this one through my binocs and it looks like a sub. Aren't they supposed to be underwater?"
"Except when they're not," Kutchinski said. "What's so interesting about this one?"
Franks paused. "I don't believe it's one of ours."
Kutchinski turned the controls over to his copilot and went down the middle of the plane to the underslung glass bubble that housed the belly gun. Franks handed him his binoculars. They were high powered and unauthorized. Franks had won them in a poker game a couple of weeks earlier.
"Take a look," Franks invited.
Kutchinski took the binoculars and focused them. It was difficult because the plane was bouncing slightly and there were irregularities in the glass bubble, but he finally managed to get a good look. Yes, it was a ship, and, yes, it was a submarine. It was hard to tell its speed from their height, but the small wake indicated it was moving slowly. Kutchinski agreed with Frank's assessment that the sub indeed looked strange. He switched o
n the intercom and told the copilot to descend to ten thousand and circle the vessel.
"She'll see us and dive if she's a Jap," Franks complained.
"Better that than drop a load of bombs on one of ours."
"Ain't ours, Major," Franks insisted.
Kutchinski hoped it was a Jap. He had never bombed a ship and hated to abort the mission with a full load. In a few moments he was going to have to dump the bomber's load into the ocean. Now maybe, just maybe, he might have a useful target.
Kutchinski was well aware that no bomber had likely yet sunk a moving warship. Despite pilots' claims to the contrary, it was just too difficult to hit a moving target from a great height. The ship below had too much time to gauge the fall of the bombs and simply turn away. That there was really no such thing as precision bombing was another factor.
Despite new Norden bomb sights, most bombs didn't land anywhere near their intended target. Norden bomb sights didn't take into account the nervousness of the operator, where a single second's misjudgment could send a bomb early or late to its destination, winds that could shift even the largest bomb in its flight, and air turbulence that jarred the plane and spoiled the calmest bombardier's aim. These and the fact that bombers could still be fired at during some aspects of their run all conspired to send bombs off target.
But what if it was a Jap sub and there was something wrong with her? She was clearer now and her silhouette was definitely strange. Their radioman signaled Guam that they had a possible enemy sub sighting and were trying to verify. Guam told them to be careful.
Maybe the Polish Pope's luck would change. After the two earlier aborts, some wiseasses were saying it was because of the plane's name. There had never been a Polish pope, Kutchinski was told, and there never would be. The name was a jinx. Even Father Girardelli, the Catholic chaplain, had suggested he change it. The priest had also assured him that the papacy was reserved for deserving Italians and had gotten a little angry when Kutchinski had told him there was no such thing as a deserving Italian.
"He's shooting at us!" yelled Franks.
"He surely is," Kutchinski said happily as tracers arced from the sub toward their plane. That settled it. The sub was a Jap. He bounded to the pilot's seat and took over command of the plane. And she's not diving, he thought with glee. Maybe she can't, he thought. Such a shame.
He decided he would not try to hit the sub directly, but came at her bow-on at one thousand feet. If a bomb dropped even near a ship, the pressure would cause the sub's hull to buckle and send her down as effectively as if he had dropped one straight down her conning tower. He ordered the nose gunners to spray the decks of the sub with. 50-caliber machine-gun fire as they approached. It wouldn't be accurate, but it might make those on her deck keep their heads down for a critical second while they bombed.
For an instant before the bombs dropped, he saw figures running about the deck of the sub and jumping into the water. Then the plane flew over and peeled away. Kutchinski saw nothing but heard the tail gunner whoop with joy. He banked the plane in a tight turn and saw the waters around the sub had been whipped into a froth as a dozen five-hundred-pound bombs exploded around her. As expected, none hit, but they caused a pressure surge that lifted the sub out of the water and laid her on her side. She began to take water and settle.
"Anybody taking pictures?" Kutchinski hollered. An affirmative reply came from two of his men who never flew without their cameras.
Franks hollered that he could see that several hull plates were damaged. "She's ruptured like my uncle Harry, Major. She's done for!"
"My sympathies to your uncle Harry," Kutchinski yelled over the intercom. He then directed his radio operator to notify the navy that there might be debris that could provide intelligence, along with the possibility that some Japs had survived the onslaught. Through his own binoculars he thought he could see heads in the water.
As the men on the Polish Pope circled and watched, the stricken sub sank beneath the waves, breaking in half just before she slid from view. It occurred to Kutchinski that damned few men had been able to get off, and he wondered what was going on in that sinking ship as it descended to the bottom of the Pacific. He decided he didn't really want to know.
CHAPTER 64
SOUTH OF KYUSHU, THE I-58
Comdr. Mochitsura Hashimoto vomited oily water and grasped for a piece of floating debris. The dying submarine I-58 had sent a torrent of materiel upward as she sank to the bottom, and much of it now floated near him. If he could stay afloat for a while, he might not yet die. That he was still alive in the first place hinted that he might not yet have been chosen to die this day.
He wiped his eyes and squinted. The oil and the salt from the water had blurred his vision. A life preserver bobbed a few feet in front of him and he struggled into it. Relieved of the need to use all his strength swimming, he looked about him. The I-58 was indeed gone, as if there had been a doubt. He hollered and a scattering of voices answered.
In a few minutes he had gathered up the survivors of the sinking. Counting himself, there were eight men. Eight men out of the entire crew. A couple were wounded, but would survive if he could get them out of the chill waters in a reasonable amount of time. He didn't think there were sharks this far north, but he quickly concluded that sharks were the least of their problems. The cold would get them in a few hours at most.
They fashioned a raft of sorts out of the remains of the sub and clambered on board. They had no food or water, but at least they were alive. They were the lucky ones.
Luck, however, could be good or bad. It had been good luck that the I-58 had evaded destruction for so long. They had used the last of their torpedoes and were attempting a passage back to Japan when, bad luck, the bow fins had suddenly stuck in a position that gradually drove them toward the surface. But perhaps that had been good luck? Had they jammed in the downward position, the I-58 would slowly have descended to the bottom of the ocean, where it would have laid forever while the men died of oxygen loss if the depths didn't crush the sub's hull.
Hashimoto shuddered at the thought. He had thought they were far enough away from the American warships and ordered an immediate surfacing to see if the damaged fins could be fixed. He feared daylight surfacing, but there had been no choice.
It had been bad luck that the American plane had spotted them. Even then he did not think the danger was immediate. The plane, a bomber, had circled them and was obviously puzzled at their behavior and uncertain of their nationality. The damage to the bow fins would only take a few minutes to fix, and then they could dive from the vulture's sight.
It had been stupidity, not bad luck, that doomed them when the machine gunner on the conning tower had fired at the bomber. Not only was the bomber out of range, but it gave away the game. When the bomber came in with its guns blazing, Hashimoto had been forced into the water with most of the men who now sat with him on the raft. He and the others had just made it back onto the deck of the sub when the bombs had exploded, killing the I-58. That they were not in the water, good luck, had saved them. Water does not compress so the pressure of the explosions on their bodies in the water would have squashed the life from them.
"Captain," said one of the sailors, pointing toward the horizon. Two ships were approaching. This time there was no puzzlement. They were American, and in only a few moments, he identified them as destroyers.
The only remaining officer was Ensign Naha, a young man Hashimoto didn't really know. Ensigns were best seen and not heard. Naha stood up shakily on the raft.
"We must not be taken," he announced.
"What do you propose?" Hashimoto asked. The ensign bowed respectfully and knelt down to keep his balance. "Do we have weapons to use on the Americans?" Hashimoto asked.
A quick check showed there were none, not even a pocketknife. "I believe it is our fate to be captured," Hashimoto said. He wondered whether that would be good luck or bad. Regardless, it would happen.
"I will not surrender,
" yelled Naha. Before anyone could stop him, he jumped into the water and disappeared. In a few seconds, some bubbles popped onto the surface. They were all that remained of Ensign Naha, and the sight of yet another wasted life saddened Hashimoto. He realized that a decision he had always thought impossible was now imminent.
"Captain?" asked one of the sailors through blueing lips. "Shall we follow him? Give us your orders."
The destroyers were much closer and had paired off, one on either side of the huddled group. In a few moments they would be on top of them. It occurred to Hashimoto that the Americans could only have been a mile or so over the horizon. Luck again?
"My orders are that we live."
"They will shoot us," the sailor wailed.
"Not if we show them we are harmless. Strip," Hashimoto ordered. He and the six other men peeled off their clothes. He'd heard that the Americans were concerned about Japanese hiding grenades in their clothing and on their bodies. Nakedness, however degrading under the circumstances, might show them otherwise.
"Everything," he commanded, and in a few seconds they were all naked and shivering from fear as well as the cold.
With exquisite seamanship, one of the destroyers placed itself virtually alongside the raft. "Do you surrender?" someone asked in terrible Japanese.
"We surrender," Hashimoto responded slowly but clearly. He hoped that the American understood him. "I am an officer and you have my word on it."
Getting on board the destroyer was tricky. Netting was lowered, but a couple of the men were too numbed from the cold to hold on. The Americans dropped ropes and hauled up the Japanese like cargo. Hashimoto, as the officer in charge, was the last and managed to climb the net.
Finally he stood, dripping and naked on the deck of the American warship. He was surrounded by at least a score of armed men. Submachine guns were leveled at them as if the seven cold, miserable, and naked Japanese would try to take over the destroyer.
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