The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3)

by Charles S. Jackson

  Armed with a 20mm cannon and 12.7mm (.50-inch) machine gun in each wing, and two more identical machine guns in the upper nose of its radial engine cowling, the aircraft was also quite heavily armed. When combined with the substantial armour protection provided the pilot and the aircraft’s vitals, it was indeed a major departure from any Japanese design that had preceded it.

  USAAF Aircraft Warning Service

  Opana Hill, Oahu, Hawaii

  At 500 feet above sea level, Opana Hill afforded a fine view down to the shoreline and out across Kawela Bay. Privates George Elliot and Joseph Lockard of the Army Air Force’s Aircraft Warning Service (AWS) didn’t come up there for the scenery, but they weren’t complaining all the same as they sent about their usual routine and awaited the arrival of the chow truck sometime in the next hour. The pair had worked together now for the last twelve months as part of the AWS on Oahu, originally part of a crew manning a mobile radar unit on that same site.

  The original SCR-270 unit, only the twelfth ever made of the American’s first land-based radar sets, had since been removed from its mobile platform and instead fitted to the more permanent facility they were now operating. Neither man had had any experience with radar prior to their posting to the Opana site, however they’d learned a great deal in the year that had passed and there was now little that slipped past them on their eight hour shifts.

  That being said, there was little chance of missing the huge return signal that suddenly appeared on their main screen just after dawn that morning at long range.

  “Hey, Joe…!” Elliot called out, seated at his console in the small, green-painted hut that accompanied the radar tower outside. “Joe, get in here: take a look at this…!”

  “Whaddya got, buddy?” Lockard queried, walking in from the front door where he’d been enjoying a morning stretch and taking in the picturesque view of the beaches at the bottom of the hill.

  “Picked up a huge signal,” Elliot explained, pointing superfluously at the massive green blip at the top corner of his screen. “Distance is out at a hundred and thirty miles, so they must be at high altitude.”

  “You sure it ain’t a glitch?” His partner growled suspiciously, checking the connections at the rear of the panel and giving all the settings a once-over with a seasoned eye, not really doubting the other’s abilities but wanting to confirm it for himself.

  “Holy Jesus, Joe, that ain’t no glitch: that’s a whole Goddamned air force…!”

  “Hell, George; only an hour before end of shift too…!” Lockard sighed wistfully, suspecting his breakfast was about to be delayed indefinitely. “Guess we’d better call this one in…”

  HQ, US Army Pacific

  Fort Shafter, Honolulu

  Opened in 1907, Fort Shafter was the oldest military base on the island of Oahu and had served as the headquarters for the US Army in Hawaii the entire time. Spread out across the Shafter Flats at Māpunapuna, and up to the ridgelines of the Kalihi and Moanalua Valleys, the facility was the command centre for the entirety of American Army units in the Pacific region, excepting those of the USAFFE (US Army Forces in the Far East) in the Philippines under Douglas Macarthur.

  Fort Shafter was also the site of the Pearl Harbor Intercept Center, a relatively new unit that had been in operation for around the same length of time as the radar stations dotted about the Hawaiian Islands. Officer on duty that morning, as he often had been for the last year or so, was First Lieutenant Kermit Tyler, the XO of the 78th Fighter Squadron based out of Pearl Harbor.

  Tyler had known very little about radar or fighter ground control concepts at the time he’d first been assigned the posting, but he’d learned fast with the aid of some intensive army training. The phone at his operations desk rang just twice that morning before he’d grabbed it and brought it to his ear.

  “Intercept Centre: Lieutenant Tyler…” he answered crisply, leaning over his desk and giving a nod of thanks as a passing private dropped off his morning coffee.

  “Sir, this is Private Lockard up at Opana…” Joseph Lockard advised the moment the response came through. “We’ve got a large contact on our screens here, coming in from the north at high altitude…”

  “Okay, Private,” Tyler acknowledged with a frown, snugging the handset between his shoulder and his ear as he shuffled through some papers on his desk to locate the daily arrivals sheet. “Just give me a minute…” He located the information he was searching for and lifted it up, scanning quickly. “Says here we have a flight of PBYs due in around now from Midway, and some B-17s coming in from the West Coast, but they weren’t supposed to be here until later this morning… think it could be either of those…?”

  “Ahh, I dunno sir… this signal is awful big… I never seen anything like it. Coming in from the north at a hundred and thirty miles – three points east… I think this is a lot more than just one flight of planes, sir…” there was a pause, as if Lockard was reluctant to continue. “…Looks more like hundreds…”

  “Understood, Joe,” Tyler nodded, taking the report with deadly earnest. “We’ll raise an alert and get our boys up to check it out… thanks for the head’s up… Davis…!” He barked, calling out for the duty communications NCO the moment he’d replaced the handset. “Contact alert! Large mass of aircraft heading in from due north: high altitude, range one-thirty miles. Get whatever we got up and headed in that direction! Better let PACFLT know too…” he added with a lopsided grin as the NCO went about implementing his orders, pronouncing the acronym as ‘Pack-Fleet’. “…Be about time those Navy pukes earned their pay…!”

  It was five minutes later that the first reports of an attack on the Panama Canal reached the unit, although no specific details were yet available. It was enough to warrant a general alert.

  At nearby Wheeler Army Airfield, pilots were running for their aircraft within minutes as alarms sounded and the wail of air raid sirens split the air. Ground crew swarmed all over the hardstand areas as they readied dozens of Mustangs and Thunderbolts, their Packard V-12s and Wright-Cyclone radials clattering to life in the early morning sun. They had all been at a general level of readiness in any case, something that had been prompted by the withdrawal of the Japanese ambassador. Unfortunately, the news from Berlin regarding the threat of nuclear devices had not been passed on down the chain from Washington… information that might otherwise have left US forces in the Pacific more prepared for a specific threat rather than just vague feelings of unease.

  The same was happening at Hickam Field and a number of others around Oahu as the alarm was raised. Right around the island, swarms of fighters roared into the skies, climbing high and turning north toward the oncoming danger. Their pilots were all well-trained and flying two of the finest fighter aircraft the world had even seen. Their only possible enemy was the Japanese, a race they’d been led to believe was substantially inferior in both intelligence and combat ability; both suppositions wildly inaccurate and about to be proven so in the worst possible way.

  Aboard Yamato, Captain Matsuda Chiaki glanced across at his radar warfare officer and raised an eyebrow, requiring no further verbal question.

  “Receiving emissions from their land-based radar, sir,” the lieutenant answered quickly, ready with his answer. “We’ve been detecting them now for several minutes.”

  “Strong enough to return a signal on us…?”

  “No sir, not at this range.”

  “But they can see our aircraft?”

  “Definitely, sir… our understanding of the capability of their equipment suggests that they would easily detect aircraft at this range.”

  “Very well,” Matsuda sighed, perhaps a little disappointed by the passive nature of the First Wave’s involvement in this battle. “It is time then to reveal ourselves… Activate our search systems, lieutenant: let’s give them something to see!”

  “Yes, sir…!”

  Atop Yamato’s tiny island superstructure, the huge metal framework of her main search radar began to
rotate a moment later, blasting is signal out into the ether for all to see. It was based on a German design known as Seetakt, and on a good day could detect larger warships at ranges of up to seventy or eighty nautical miles, although half that distance was far more common. Although ineffective beyond that range, its emissions however were nevertheless visible at far greater distances, and its 75cm-wavelength transmissions were easily detected by land-based units on Oahu and aboard the carriers of the distant US Task Force 16.

  The alert of an incident in Panama and the possibility of an impending aerial attack both reached US Task Force 16 a few minutes after the initial warning, sending their entire flight group into alert. Although the location had not yet been known, it now was clear that an enemy carrier force lay somewhere to the north of Oahu, and deck crews began arming and readying their entire complements of attack bombers accordingly. As the emissions from Yamato were detected in the minutes that followed, it was all the confirmation required that they were looking at a serious attack on Pearl Harbor, something the War Department had feared for well over a year now.

  Admiral Spruance had been alerted and arrived at the bridge within minutes of the initial warning, already sending orders in all directions as fighters and attack aircraft were prepared for what all now believed was an impending battle against a large carrier force somewhere to the north of Oahu. The first of that multitude of aircraft now crowding the decks of each of the four carriers present began to struggle into the sky moments after the position of Yamato was revealed.

  After perhaps thirty minutes of forming up and waiting for the rest of their units to become airborne, a force of several hundred fighter-bombers and attack aircraft turned due east for their identified targets, leaving just a single squadron on BARCAP (BARrier Combat Air Patrol) to protect the fleet. Spruance and his command cadre believed they possessed the benefit of complete surprise, and the emphasis was therefore placed on getting the maximum number of aircraft possible over the target to maximise the damage inflicted.

  They were all flying quite low to avoid radar detection, intending to give their prey as little warning of their approach as possible, quickly disappearing into the sun glare spreading across the eastern horizon. Back aboard their ships, the officers and men aboard Task Force 16 settled down for a long, tense wait as their charges flew on into the rising sun, seeking out an as-yet unidentified enemy that everyone knew full well must be the Japanese.

  I-168 was cruising at periscope depth once more as the first US attack waves droned past at low altitude. Indistinct as they were, the sheer volume of aircraft speeding by overhead, filling the search periscope’s viewfinder, were sufficient to indicate that it was an all-out strike. Tanabe immediately raised his sub’s transmission mast and broadcast another short, coded transmission that sounded to an uninitiated ear as nothing more than a boring, inconsequential position report in plain English.

  The submarine stowed its periscopes and went deep a few minutes later, its part in the proceedings to follow now ended. Turning away to the south, I-168 cruised away at a steady five knots, intending to get as far away from the American fleet as it could before the need for oxygen or battery recharge forced it to the surface. Whatever the outcome of the coming battle, the seas around Hawaii would be swarming with enemy warships and aircraft in the days to follow, and a lone submarine stood little chance of survival of caught on the surface amid all of that.

  The message was received upon Akagi, and matching orders for the launch of all aircraft were issued immediately after. Fighters, bombers and torpedo aircraft howled from the forward decks of the Japanese Navy’s most experienced fleet carriers, however with over five hundred aircraft forming up into three distinct waves, launched from six separate carriers, it took some time for the entire fleet to form up and turn to the south-west. The main Japanese fleet also withheld only a single squadron for defence of the fleet, both sides believing they were protected by the element of surprise.

  To the south, the lead aircraft of the Japanese ‘First Wave’ obtained their first glimpse of the approaching American land-based defenders while still approximately forty miles north of the coast of Oahu, both sides at similarly high altitudes. The first ten squadrons – approximately 90 aircraft – immediately dropped the auxiliary fuel tanks hooked beneath their wings and bored in at full throttle, arming their guns and fully prepared for battle. They’d been using the fuel in those drop tanks first, preserving as much of their internal supply as they were able for the battle to come, and they were now ready to go in ‘clean’ with no aerodynamic obstructions impeding their speed or manoeuvrability.

  The remaining fourteen squadrons turned away from that battle, instead heading off to the west en masse toward the incoming attack waves of the American carrier force. They were tasked as the first line of defence protecting Yamato, Musashi and Hiei and not one of the pilots present – all combat veterans from the campaigns in Manchukuo and China – had any thought of failure.

  The first air battle of the coming Pacific War therefore began a brutal, hard-turning affair between the land-based fighters of the Hawaiian Islands and the elite of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The three main combatants, the F-1D Mustang, F-47A Thunderbolt and the Mitsubishi A6M2 Reisen were all quite closely matched in performance, the difference between the physical characteristics of the three nowhere near enough to have any bearing whatsoever in the midst of a dogfight.

  The swarm of Zeros that tore through the USAAF ranks on that Monday morning all wore identical, pale grey camouflage with engine cowlings painted a plain, black-grey. The original paint tone was originally a darker olive-grey, however the paint had a tendency to fade to a far lighter gull-grey in practice. They were fast and agile and controlled by veteran pilots, and their 20mm cannon and 12.7mm machine guns ripped into their opponents with devastating force.

  The pilots of the United States Army Air Force were also well-trained – the Army had made sure of that as tensions had increased between the two nations over the last few years – yet all the training in the world was no substitute for hardened battle experience. Although the American fighters indeed inflicted serious losses against their turning, twisting foe, they were decimated in return with many pilots’ lives only saved by their aircraft’s ability to sustain substantial amounts of damage.

  This was particularly true of the F-47A Thunderbolt – a huge fighter by any standard with four .50-inch Brownings mounted each wing. Although not quite as agile as their smaller opponents, they were big and tough and able to absorb huge amounts of damage as they ducked and dived this way and that, tearing enemies apart with their eight machine guns. All the while, their smaller and far more agile Mustang brethren darted in and out of the fray, twisting and turning and looping over and over as they danced desperately with the Zero pilots, each trying to gain the upper hand while keeping another enemy of their backs.

  Banks of heavy machine guns hammered away as the defending USAAF pilots sought out their prey, forced into extremely steep learning curves by their experienced opponents. In opposition to Commonwealth practice of arming their fighters with cannon, all American models were armed as standard by the Browning AN/M3 .50-caliber machine gun (an indictment of the poor reliability of 20mm cannon manufactured in the United States at the time, rendering tens of millions of rounds of 20mm ammunition all but useless).

  Although firing solid slugs rather than explosive warheads (albeit relatively small ones), the Browning was nevertheless a potent weapon with a huge potential for inflicting damage. It was also faster-firing that the Hispano cannon fitted to Commonwealth aircraft and was supremely accurate. That the weapons fitted to the Zeros were also direct copies of the Browning .50-inch and the 20mm Hispano Mk.V was as much of a bitter irony as the use of the copied engine.

  The entire sky over Oahu’s northern coast from sea level to thirty thousand feet became a churning, seething mass of opposing aircraft, with contrails and streamers of smoke and flame criss-crossing the entire sc
ene like some huge, impressionist mural. The show was visible for many miles, with inhabitants on the coast and quite a way inland ignoring the air raid sirens that howled throughout the entire island chain and coming out for a good look at the battle raging not far away above the beach

  The odds remained even for some time, with the Japanese pilots’ clear superiority of experience somewhat cancelled out by the greater numbers of defenders joining the fray as more and more American squadrons arrived on the scene from bases further afield. It was never likely to last however: the simple laws of attrition soon began to weigh heavily on the remaining Zero pilots as more and more of their fellow fliers fell to the American guns. To their credit, not a one turned away in retreat for all that. Every pilot had been chosen for his experience, courage and dedication and they all knew the stakes that might be lost if they did not fight on to the last man.

  While the battle raged, attack squadrons all over the islands prepared their own aircraft with torpedoes and armour-piercing bombs, all loaded into scores of twin-engined A-20 Havocs and B-25 Mitchells. Their crews would be airborne within minutes, biding their time until the maelstrom off the coast had died down enough for their slower, more vulnerable aircraft to have a reasonable chance of slipping past the remaining enemies and striking at the Japanese carriers beyond.

  With enemy numbers quickly dwindling, the American pilots’ confidence began to grow exponentially, all of them sensing the possibility of a major victory against a powerful opponent. Perhaps because of their relative inexperience, at no stage whatsoever did any of them make any connection with the fact that every aircraft they had come up against was a fighter: that there had been no strike aircraft included in the approaching armada.

  Even back on Oahu, their ground-based controllers continued to mark down every report of a victory and every change in that throning, twisting air battle, and not once did any officer or NCO recognise the significance of the fact that no offensive aircraft whatsoever had been present, or what the ramifications of that were. Had that information been noted and passed on to the Navy, the battles yet to come might possibly have had a far different outcome.