by Peter Albano
It was a week filled with disasters. Following Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech, Congress declared war on Japan. Germany and Italy declared war on the United States and the U.S. declared war on them. Japanese aircraft caught MacArthur’s air force on the ground at dark Field in the Philippines and destroyed most of it. Japanese forces landed in Malaya and Thailand. Manila, Singapore, and Hong Kong were bombed. Guam fell and Wake Island was under attack. However, the greatest disaster occurred off the Malaya Peninsula on December 10 when the British battleship Prince of Wales and battle cruiser Repulse were sunk by Japanese aircraft. The German withdrawal from Moscow and the relief of Tobruk did nothing to relieve the gloom.
On December 14 the surviving officers were addressed by Captain Thomas Flanigan from the staff of Admiral Kimmel. The meeting was held in a conference room shaped like a small amphitheater. Completely bald, Flanigan was a fiftyish man with a florid face and the large red pockmarked nose of a man with a weakness for alcohol. Harsh lines of fatigue coursed downward severely from the corners of his eyes and mouth. Flanked by his aide, a young lieutenant, and a yeoman who sat at a small table with a pad and pencil, he mounted a platform at the front of the room. Speaking in a whiskey-addled voice, the captain told the men they would be returning to the mainland for survivor’s leave. He cautioned them about secrecy. “The enemy must not know about the extent of the damage to the fleet.”
“He’s got to know. Captain,” a commander said. “My God, he has eyes and he must have had cameras.”
“True, but he won’t know the details—how extensive the damage was.”
“Then not a word to our families?” another officer said.
“Of course. Complete secrecy. We must keep this information from the Japs and we must consider civilian morale, too.”
“The press, sir,” Marcky said.
“They’re restricted.”
Marcky waved in an encompassing gesture. “But the hills, sir. Anybody can see. . .”
Flanigan cut the ensign off with a dismissive gesture. “We have the cooperation of the media. The only descriptions of damage they will report will be those provided by us.” He punched a palm with a big beefy fist. “Minor damage will be reported and that’s it.”
There were a few cynical snickers, but the captain ignored them. Then there was a discussion of damage. Only Arizona and Oklahoma were completely lost. Salvage and repair crews were already working on Tennessee, Maryland, Nevada, California, and West Virginia. Pennsylvania had sustained little damage. Six of the eight battleships would be returned to service soon. No one in the audience believed this.
The meeting was dismissed, but to Rodney’s surprise, Captain Flanigan asked him and Ensign Marcky to remain. He dismissed his aide and the yeoman who had been taking notes. Obeying the captain’s gesture, the two officers sat at the small table. Flanigan took a chair opposite them.
Drumming the table with short pudgy fingers and averting his eyes, the captain began, “This comes straight from Cornpacfleet. Arizona was lost because a bomb went down her stack, exploded her boilers, and set off her magazines.”
Rodney felt a wave of anger storm from his guts and burst from his lips in a shout. “That’s a lie! It was that goddamn black powder. Illegally stored on the second deck. That’s what killed the crew!” He came half-out of his chair. A wide-eyed Marcky pulled him back.
Surprisingly, the captain retained his composure and answered in an evenly modulated timbre, “That may be true, Lieutenant Higgins. But the damage is so cataclysmic, so complete, we may never know the true reason.”
“I know the true reason,” Rodney said bitterly, clutching his bandaged head, which had suddenly started to throb viciously.
“Perhaps. Someday the reports must be made and next of kin must be informed and we owe it to them to at least give meaning to the deaths of their loved ones.”
“You mean we don’t want them to know they died because of our own carelessness. Died for nothing, Captain. Cover it up.”
The big nose flamed scarlet and tiny veins made their first appearance like a latticework across the nose and cheeks. The captain showed his first loss of patience. “This is an order, Lieutenant. A bomb went down the stack of the Arizona, Is that clear?” He did not wait for an answer. “If it isn’t clear, you will remain here for the rest of the war assigned to the boondocks!”
Rodney fumed like a volcano on the verge of eruption. He could feel Marcky’s hand on his arm. He calmed himself. “I obey my orders. But this one under protest.”
“Protest all you like, Lieutenant. But both of you remember what has been said here when you board that transport for the States.”
“When, sir?” Marcky asked eagerly.
“Tomorrow. You both leave tomorrow.”
XI
December 27, 1941
Rodney arrived in Grand Central Station on a Saturday afternoon. The complexion of the place had changed, uniforms everywhere in the crowd, servicemen and their women saying tearful farewells. Armed Military Police patrolled in pairs and there were two Red Cross stands dispensing coffee and doughnuts to men in uniform. He phoned his mother and refused when she said she would send a car. Instead, he told her he would hail a cab. After he hung up, he pulled a slip of paper from his wallet, called the long-distance operator, and asked for a number. Within seconds, his call was completed and a woman’s voice said, “This is the White House. Marguerite LeHand here.”
Rodney spoke for a few moments, finally smiling and saying, “Monday afternoon at fifteen hundred hours. Got it.” He replaced the telephone on its hook. Then he walked out to the curb and climbed into a cab.
Wearily, he settled into the back seat with his single barracks bag. He was wearing a new set of blues he had bought in Long Beach after he had disembarked from the transport. However, he was still unable to wear his hat because of the tenderness of his wound that still showed swollen, red, and discolored through the short growth of hair. Although the sutures had been removed, stitch marks were still clearly visible. He carried his hat under his arm. He had earned the Purple Heart, but, somehow, as he thought of his dead shipmates, wearing it seemed like a vainglorious attempt to appear a hero—to be the wounded, indomitable warrior personified by the film star John Wayne. The thought was nauseating.
Brenda, Travers the butler, his aunt Betty, grandmother Ellen, cousin Marsha, and Nicole met him at the door. Brenda wrapped her arms around her son and sobbed on his shoulder. “It must’ve been horrible,” she cried.
“Oh, no. Mother. They did very little damage, really,” he said, mouthing the well-rehearsed lie. “It’s all been in the papers—just minor damage.”
“Your head!”
“Just a scratch. Tripped over a ladder.”
“Your ship?”
“Ah, some damage. Nothing that can’t be fixed.”
Then he was engulfed by his grandmother Ellen and aunt Betty while Travers, Nicole, and Marsha hung back, looking for an opening. Finally, Travers grabbed his hand, his aunt darted in for a quick kiss followed by Marsha. Rodney turned his head quickly and took his cousin’s lips on his cheek.
His mother gestured to the sitting room and walking past Nicole, he stopped and embraced her. She kissed his cheek and cried, “Welcome home, monsieur.”
Within a few minutes he was seated on the sofa with his mother on one side and his grandmother on the other. Wordlessly, Travers handed Rodney a double Scotch and seltzer. Nicole hung over his shoulder and the other women pulled up chairs. Everyone, including his grandmother, held a glass.
Ellen raised her drink. “To a quick victory over the cowardly Japs.”
“Hear! Hear!” was chorused. But Rodney saw his mother bite her lip before she drank.
“Your head looks like a jigsaw puzzle,” Brenda said, staring at the wound.
Rodney laughed. “Just a scratch, Mother,” he
said. “I told you.”
“Won’t it ever end?” Brenda anguished. “I’ve lost two husbands—Randolph and Lloyd both have been fighting since 1914 and carry the scars on their bodies and their souls. And, my God, now my sons. The world is mad! Mad! Mad!” She brought her fist to her mouth but could not stifle her sobs. Ellen began to cry and Betty dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. Even Nicole and Marsha were misty-eyed.
Rodney held Brenda close. “Mother, I have a month’s leave.” He avoided the word “survivor.” “I’ll be around here until you get sick of me.”
Brenda dabbed at her eyes and forced a smile. “You’ll spend every minute here, with me.”
Chuckling, Rodney held up his glass and Travers and Nicole raced to fill it. Nicole won. He looked at his mother. “Every minute, Mother.” He drank. “Except for Monday and Tuesday, I’ve got to report to the Pentagon—a report and stuffy things like that.” He tried to make the lie sound flip but failed.
“A report?”
“Of course. Mother. I’ll be back by Tuesday—Wednesday at the latest.”
She held him very close and her tears left little wet spots on his new uniform.
The president looked as if he had aged ten years. The moment Rodney stepped into the Oval Office, he was gripped by the funereal atmosphere. Roosevelt looked like a man who had taken giant strides toward his own grave. The face was haggard, creased by new lines, eyes bloodshot and swollen from the lack of sleep. Even the pince-nez seemed to droop low on his nose and the cigarette holder hung out of the corner of his mouth. A half-empty cocktail glass was on the cluttered desk. The job would kill Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Rodney was absolutely sure of it.
There were two other people in the room; the secretary, Marguerite LeHand, seated at the small revolving desk next to the president and an elderly man in a blue business suit who was seated to the president’s left. With sandy gray hair, the man was of medium build and his face looked as tired and drawn as the president’s. He held a drink in his hand and rose when Rodney entered.
“Lieutenant Rodney Higgins,” the president said, beaming and waving his cigarette. “It’s good to see you, son.” He gestured to the stranger, “This is my secretary of the navy. Colonel Frank Knox.”
Colonel Frank Knox was well known to Rodney. An ex-Rough Rider and publisher of the internationalist-minded Chicago Daily News, he had been the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 1936. Rodney grasped the colonel’s hand. The grip was firm and the look in the man’s eyes was warm and concerned. “You’ve been wounded,” Knox said, staring at Rodney’s head.
“When the Arizona. . .” Rodney caught himself and stared at the secretary.
Roosevelt spoke up, “It’s okay, Lieutenant. Missy hears nothing, repeats nothing. We can discuss anything here.”
Rodney completed his sentence, “When the Arizona blew up I got clobbered—knocked out. A seaman brought me around, probably saved my life.”
“Brave fellow,” Roosevelt said. “He deserves a decoration.”
“He’s dead, sir.”
There was a long silence. Roosevelt broke it. “Then, by God, we’ll award it posthumously. Give the details to Missy.”
Rodney quickly described Seaman Second Class Marvin Bollenbach’s part in reviving him and Bollenbach’s death on Ford Island.
“Terrible. Terrible,” the president said, voice deep and filled with grief as if he had lost a member of his own family. Then his voice became apologetic, “I’m sorry. I’m remiss as a host. A drink, Lieutenant?” he said, pouring a generous shot of Johnnie Walker Black Label into a glass. Roosevelt smiled. “See, I remembered. You’re a Scotch drinker.” Missy rose and brought the drink to Rodney. Roosevelt refilled his cocktail glass with a martini from the same pitcher Rodney remembered from his first visit and dropped in an olive. He stubbed out his cigarette, selected another from a pack of Camels, screwed it into the holder, and lighted it with his gold lighter. He took a long drag that he sucked deep into his lungs and drank half his martini in one gulp. The president stared at the young officer through the haze of smoke. “You wanted to see me. Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir.”
Roosevelt nodded at Knox. “Well, we wanted to see you, too.” He took another drink. “You know a board of inquiry is studying the attack and its consequences. I assume you will be called eventually. We even have divers down, studying the damage, and salvage operations have begun. And I, personally, have interviewed a dozen senior officers who were witnesses. But we would be interested in precisely what you saw.” The voice dropped and the eyes were averted, “You know there were very few survivors of Arizona—especially officers.”
Rodney emptied his glass and Missy refilled it. Slowly and deliberately Rodney Higgins described the events of December seventh. As he spoke, the horror, fear, and rage all came back. He had trouble controlling his voice. The president and the secretary of the navy listened, both staring at the young man with remorse and anger on their faces. Marguerite LeHand took notes furiously, glancing up occasionally. “And it was the powder, a ton of black powder stored on the second deck that set off the main magazines—killed most of my shipmates,” Rodney said in a harsh, husky voice. His hand was trembling. He paused to drink and compose himself while everyone stared uneasily. He continued, the timbre of his voice acid with bitterness, “Carelessness killed them. That’s what it was.”
Silence seeped through the room like the oily waters of Pearl Harbor, coating everyone and everything. Frank Knox and the president exchanged a long enigmatic look. Finally, Knox spoke, “You can’t accept the theory that a bomb went down the funnel?”
Rodney felt the frustration and anger of three weeks of hell begin to boil over. His eyes were wide and he waved the drink, spilling some of the Scotch. “Could you? That’s the story I got at Pearl. It’s ludicrous, Mr. Secretary, and you know it as well as I do.” Trying to calm himself, Rodney took a large swallow of Scotch. “And those bombs weren’t that good. The torpedoes did most of the damage to the other ships on Battleship Row.”
The president and the secretary of the navy eyed each other with surprise. “You’re right about the bombs. Lieutenant. They were finned forty-centimeter shells. One penetrated the second deck of West Virginia and failed to explode.We’ve been studying it,” Knox said.
“The armor stopped it,” Rodney suggested.
“Correct.”
“And a forty-centimeter AP shell would carry a small explosive charge—probably about seventy pounds.”
“Sixty-six and a half pounds,” Knox said.
“You’re very knowledgeable, Lieutenant Higgins,” the president said.
“It’s my business, Mr. President.” Rodney turned back to Frank Knox. “Then, at the most, the bombs might have penetrated two decks? Correct?”
Lips drawn in a thin hard line like a gambler who had just seen his bluff called and his stake scooped from the table, Frank Knox nodded. He took a large drink. He almost whispered his answer, “Yes.”
“So the stack—down the stack with the miracle bomb. The unlucky hit. The one-in-a-million shot.” Rodney’s wound began to throb and he rubbed his temple gingerly. “That should throw next of kin off of the truth, protect the navy from criticism.’’
LeHand shot a surprised look at Frank Knox and then at the president. But the colonel was drumming his armrest mutely and the president remained silent, smoking and drinking and staring at the young officer.
Prank Knox’s face hardened and he said to Rodney Higgins, “You mentioned next of kin.”
“That is your primary concern, isn’t it?” Rodney shot back. “Political expediency.” LeHand gasped and dropped her pencil.
“Now see here. Lieutenant,” Roosevelt said. “That was below the belt.”
“And my shipmates are below the surface.”
The secretary stared at Rodney with shock in he
r eyes. Obviously, she had never heard anyone talk to the President of the United States like this young officer. Knox was aghast and stared silently as if his vocal cords had been frozen. He reached into a briefcase and pulled out a document. He finally managed to speak in a thick voice, “Perhaps you’re right about the powder. But there is a black powder magazine forward, right, Lieutenant?”
Rodney nodded agreement. “Yes. On all battleships. Ours was in compartment A-four-one-five-M on the first platform deck, thirty, feet below the upper deck and shielded by the second armored deck and the third splinter deck.”
Knox pressed on. “But it is possible a bomb could have penetrated that far. A hit on that magazine could have set off the powder bags of the six main battery magazines.”
“Negative.”
Surprised by the blunt response, Roosevelt interrupted, “Why do you disagree, Lieutenant?”
“Because the black powder magazine is behind and partially below the barbette of the forward turret. And don’t forget I was watching those bombs drop. They were dropped from high altitude and the angle of impact was seventy-five to eighty degrees. No less. To hit the black powder magazine, the bomb would have had to somehow avoid number one turret and the barbette—come in at fifty to sixty degrees. Impossible. Absolutely impossible.”
“And you contend. . .” Knox said, continuing the young officer’s thought.
“I don’t contend, I know, sir. As I told you, I know a ton of black powder was stored illegally on the second deck—precisely in passageway A-four-one-six—and the armored hatches must have been left open or unsecured. The men were still working there on Sunday morning. That was the only way a bomb could have penetrated, set off the magazines.” He took a large drink and stared at his glass.
Roosevelt and Knox looked at each other, obviously disconcerted by the intelligent young officer’s knowledge and ironclad arguments. Finally, Roosevelt said, “Look at it this way. Lieutenant. Arizona is lost. Nothing can ever change that. Why the entire bottom from, ah. . .”He looked at the secretary of the navy for help.
