The Pearl Harbor Murders d-3

by Max Allan Collins

  The Pearl Harbor Murders

  ( Disaster - 3 )

  Max Allan Collins

  Max Allan Collins

  The Pearl Harbor Murders

  ONE: December 5, 1941

  ONE

  Boat Day

  In less than forty-eight hours, six Japanese aircraft carriers-220 miles north of the island of Oahu-would launch 350 warplanes in an attack not preceded by any formal declaration of war. Every significant Naval and air installation would feel the brunt of the surprise raid, which lasted less than two hours and cost the United States military three destroyers, three cruisers, eight auxiliary craft, eight battleships, 188 aircraft and the lives of 1,763 officers and men. This figure increased to 2,404 when fatalities ashore-including civilian-were added to the grim roster.

  To the survivors, these deaths seemed more like murder than casualties of war: the unsuspecting victims on the Arizona, a thousand sailors on a single battleship obliterated by a single bomb during peacetime, were victims of a sneak attack one historian aptly termed as "outside the bounds of traditional warfare … better described as mass murder."

  The first of these Pearl Harbor murders, however, took place not on December 7, but in the predawn hours of December 6… a murder that might have been an early warning signal, had it been properly heeded.

  Making sense of the inherently senseless act of murder is never an easy task; but two men tried, a father and son, and this is their story.

  Hully (short for Hulbert) Burroughs found Honolulu very much to his liking. At thirty-two, a leanly muscular six-footer with an oval, boyishly handsome face and a shock of dark hair, Hully found this tropical town an excellent place for a gainfully employed young bachelor to spend an extended vacation.

  When he had first arrived, in September, Hully-perhaps reduced to a child again, in bis father's presence-had all but raced to the Aloha Tower, adjacent to where his steamer, the S. S. Mariposa, had docked. His pop had humored him, tagging along to the white ten-foot Art Moderne tower with its four looming clock dials, going up the self-service elevator to the observation deck, open to the sky, a view on every side.

  Looking toward the open sea, Hully took in a vista that included a harbor channel dotted with small and large craft, powered by sail or motor. At the west, toward Pearl Harbor, a Dole cannery water tower painted to resemble a huge pineapple rose absurdly above green cane fields, like a World's Fair pavilion. Looking east, toward Waikiki, frond-flung boulevards pointed to Diamond Head. And looking inland, north, he could note the low-slung cityscape of red-tiled roofs and tin-awning-shaded stores rising in tandem with palm trees, pink stucco structures providing pale smears of color amid stark blossoms of red, white and blue; he could see, too, like pyramids piercing an oasis, the austere limestone edifices of the trading houses and banks of the Caucasian (haole) upper class… and the grandly, even ridiculously rococo Iolani Palace… and the Nu-uanu Valley, hugged by the ridges and slopes of the Koolau range….

  He had soon come to know Honolulu as the tiny colonial city it was, a low-key paradise where your wake-up call was courtesy of a mynah bird, where you drifted down to a white beach for a sunrise swim, where the workdays were short and the evenings endless.

  His father, not surprisingly, took a less romantic view: what O. B. — "Old Burroughs," the nickname Hully, his brother Jack and sister Joan all used for their father, after he took to signing his letters to them that way-saw as Hawaii's appeal was the casual island atmosphere, white sandy beaches and local dress that ran to untucked shirt, shorts and sandals.

  At sixty-six, Hully's pop could have passed for fifty, a rugged man's man, with laughing squinty blue eyes set in a poker face the same oval shape as Hully's, only without the dark hair on top: the old man was bald but for iron-gray bristles at his temples. Ed Burroughs had long been a devout sunbather, and was tanned to a rich bronze worthy of Tarzan himself.

  Which was fitting, because Hully's father was Edgar Rice Burroughs, who was also the father of Tarzan, "the best-known literary character of the twentieth century," according to a recent issue of The Saturday Evening Post. That same magazine had dubbed the unpretentious novelist who created the famed apeman "the world's greatest living writer" … an irony Hully's pop bitterly savored, since the Post had rejected every story he had ever sent them, including one after the publication of that laudatory article.

  It was a few minutes past noon, and Hully and his father were once again at the dock, seeing off friends who were boarding the fabled Great White Ship of the Matson Line, the S. S. Lurline. Normally, his pop-who disliked crowds-would have disdained Honolulu's famed Boat Day, with its mobbed pier, its barrage of streamers, its confetti snowstorm.

  Pop even rejected the delightfully swaying hips of hula girls, and Hully could well understand why his dad loathed the din of the strumming ukuleles of beach-boys serenading women they'd seduced combined with the blare of the Royal Hawaiian Band.

  Some of these brown-as-a-berry local boys were diving for coins from the top decks.

  "Buster Crabbe used to do that," Hully reminded his father teasingly. Beachboy Buster had been an Olympic star before going to Hollywood.

  "Maybe he made a good beachboy," O. B. said. "But he was still a lousy Tarzan."

  Due to fear of war with Japan, the dock was more heavily guarded than ever before. The authorities-and the haole citizenry-were well aware that 40 percent of Hawaii's population was Japanese; so the nationalized Hawaii Territorial Guard had been called out. Of course, the Guard was primarily made up of Japanese. …

  It seemed to Hully that the women at the dock today greatly outnumbered the men-military wives, most likely, being sent to the mainland because their husbands suspected the coming war with Japan would soon restrict travel from Hawaii to California. But it wasn't all men: as usual, politicians and businessmen were among the masses, making deals, trading gossip.

  This Boat Day crowd ran well into the thousands, though only eight hundred passengers were departing; and this was typical. Matson Line calendars, marking days of departure and arrival, hung in kitchens and businesses all over Honolulu, and many a housewife and downtown office worker regularly left their respective stations to join in on the Boat Day festivities.

  "Looks like a goddamn ice-cream-salesman convention," his pop had grumbled, referring to the overbearing, sun-reflective whiteness of the crowd's attire-females in white cotton dresses shaded by white parasols, Naval officers in dress whites. Like so many civilian males here today, the Burroughses themselves were in white linen suits-no shorts and sandals for Boat Day-and white Panama hats. Pop had his Panama brim snugged down, so as not to be recognized.

  His dad didn't mind doing publicity-he often posed on the set of the MGM Tarzan pictures, with Hollywood's current apeman, Johnny Weissmuller-when it was structured, a part of his work. When he went out socially, he abhorred the kind of attention the local reporters would stick him with, if they spotted him.

  Typically, Pop had lain back when Hully escorted Marjorie to the gangway, knowing that the photographers would be snapping at her heels like hungry dogs. Marjorie Petty-who for the last five glorious weeks Hully had been dating-was the daughter of pinup artist George Petty; she was, in fact, a living Petty Girl right out of the pages of Esquire, since she was her father's model.

  It had been an innocent romance, a few kisses exchanged under the gold moon in a purple sky. But Marjorie-enjoying a Hawaiian vacation as a college graduation present-was almost constanty chaperoned by her mother (Petty's previous model), who looked somewhat askance upon the ten-year age difference between the Petty girl and the Burroughs boy.

  Hully had dared a kiss before she boarded-for once, her mothe
r didn't frown-and, a spring in his step, the young Burroughs rejoined bis father, who was standing with the friend he was seeing off, the reason Tarzan's (and Hully's) daddy had braved the Boat Day crowd.

  Colonel Frank Teske of the Army Signal Corps had already seen his wife and infant son aboard to their first-class stateroom, and had returned to invite the Burroughses to join them for refreshments till the "all ashore" was sounded.

  "No thanks," the elder Burroughs said in his husky baritone, as Hully fell in beside him. "I'm off the sauce, and, anyway, I couldn't take those corridors reeking with damn leis, it's like dimestore perfume… not to mention the cigarette smoke."

  Pop had quit drinking and smoking recently, and was of late displaying a reformer's intolerance for the second habit, if not for the first As for the leis, personally Hully got a charge of the full, fragrant ropes of yellow ilima, the sweet-scented loops of mountain maile; not bad for a quarter apiece.

  Colonel Teske was only one of many friends Hully's pop had in military circles. O. B. relished the army bustle of Fort DeRussy, Fort Ruger, Fort Shatter, and Schofield Barracks; a flier himself, he took any excuse for a trip over to Hickam Field. As for the Navy at Pearl Harbor, the elder Burroughs had on the very day Hully arrived taken his youngest boy to Battleship Row for a personal tour of the California, courtesy of its captain.

  Hully had soon learned that his father was thick with most of the brass on Oahu-Hawaii was easy duty for officers, who had lots of time on their hands, and were more than willing to mix with civilians, particularly one as famous as Hully's pop.

  Thirtyish, a knife blade of a man with a pencil mustache, just another white linen suit in the crowd, Colonel Teske said, "I appreciate you coming down like this, Ed. I'm sure going to miss our poker games."

  “I'm going to miss winning your money," O. B. said.

  In the shadow of his own Panama, the colonel's eyes were tight, and he spoke so softly his words barely registered above the din. "I only wish you'd take my advice and get the hell back to the mainland."

  "Come on, Frank," O. B. replied, in his typical staccato fashion. "You know a Jap attack here is a long shot This entire island is a fortress! Every point, every headland fortified… Navy and Army and Navy Air Corps, twenty-five thousand troops! I refuse to worry." "Get yourself on the next boat, Ed." A smirk dimpled Burroughs' cheek. "Well, if a skinflint like you springs for traveling first class, you must mean what you say."

  Shaking his head, Teske said, "First Class was the only accommodation available. There's a record number of passengers on this trip-seventy of 'em assigned to cots in the main lounge!"

  O. B. pawed the air goodnaturedly with a big blunt hand. "I don't deny war's coming. But Honolulu is one of the safest places under the Flag. Teske, you're a damn pessimist!"

  Hully wasn't so sure he agreed with his father. After all, me Matsonia-the Lurline's sister ship-had been recently converted to a troopship; today was the first time in two weeks transportation to California had been available, excluding a few seats on the Pan Am clippers.

  "No offense, Colonel," Hully said, "but you told us there'd be an attack by Thanksgiving, and nothing happened. What makes you think-"

  "You'll probably be all right till Christmas. Oh hell, who knows?' Teske put a hand on O. B.'s shoulder. "You may be right, Ed-or why else would the brass order me to San Francisco?"

  "What are you doing, heading out there, Colonel?" Hully asked. "If you can say …"

  "Same thing I was supposed to be doing hoe-install radar installations, and run simulated attacks by carrier-based planes."

  "Now that makes sense," Burroughs said. "The San Francisco Navy Yard, there's a target"

  Teske shrugged. "Anyway, I'm glad to get out of this madhouse…. Ed, thanks for the send-off. I'll see you in the States."

  "One of these days," Burroughs said.

  Father and son did not wait around for the Lurline's actual departure, avoiding the hoopla of whistle blasts and a brassy "Aloha Oe," hoping to beat the crowd. They had parked three blocks away, noting more police in evidence than usual-further sabotage fear? — and Fort and Bishop streets were jammed with traffic; it was getting as bad as back home in California, Hully thought.

  Pop drove, as usual-he loved to drive-and they both tossed their Panamas on the floor in the backseat, as otherwise the wind would have whisked the hats away; the top was down on the sporty white '37 Pierce Arrow, a twelve-cylinder with chrome wheel covers. They were heading Waikiki way along the Ala Moana (Sea Road), and traffic had let up some.

  As they glided by the United States Army Transport docks, across from which was the Hawaiian General Depot and the Air Depot, Hully asked, "What exactly does Colonel Teske do?"

  His blacksmith's hands gripping the steering wheel, O. B. glanced over at his son, blue eyes hard. "Besides talk a lot of pessimistic baloney? He's with the Army Signal Corps. Commander of the Army's aircraft warning system in Hawaii."

  Hully had not been privy to the conversations between Teske and his father, but he knew the colonel had arrived only about a month ago, and was a recent addition to the roster of his pop's military pals.

  "So what's this about radar?" Hully asked. They were passing the Myrtle and Healani Boat Clubs.

  "Well, you know what it is, don't you?"

  "Sure."

  "Frank brought radar to the islands, and it's a damn good idea, too. Look at the role it played in the Battle of Britain." O. B. shrugged, wind whipping the white linen of bis jacket. "And I guess I can't blame Frank for his attitude-both the military and the civilians have given him one load of horseshit after another."

  "How so?"

  "Well, General Short thinks mobile radar stations aren't worth operating on a twenty-four-hour basis. To him, they're just a good training tool for the lower ranks."

  Rather enjoying the wind rustling his hair, Hully asked, "What good does radar do if you're not using it all the time?"

  "None-that's Frank's point."

  Just ahead was the entrance to Fort Armstrong, one of five Coast Artillery Defense Batteries on Oahu.

  "You said civilians were giving him crap, too," Hully said. "What do civilians have to do with it?"

  "Plenty, when it's the governor. Him, and the National Park Service. They won't let Frank put his radar setups on mountain peaks, where they'd be most effective-it might ruin the view."

  "Hell," Hully said, snorting a laugh. "I can see why Colonel Teske is frustrated."

  "So can I, son, but he's still wrong about a Japanese air raid on Oahu. And most military personnel, and informed civilians, agree with me, in considering that a remote possibility."

  They were nearing Kewalo Basin, home of sampans in the water and out-several Japanese boatbuilding firms sat along the artificial harbor with its fleet of marine-blue sampans, blending with the water they bobbed in.

  "The threat here," his father said, casting an eye toward the man-made Japanese harbor, "isn't from above-it's from within."

  "Sabotage."

  He nodded, his expression grave, his thick hands tight on the wheel. "I know you don't agree with me on this, Hully, but you can't deny the reality-better than one out of three Hawaiians are of Jap heritage."

  "Come on, O. B.-the majority of them are hardworking, conservative souls-"

  "With relatives living back in Japan," his father finished. "A good number of these issei and nisei are Japanese citizens…."

  Issei were first-generation immigrants, ineligible for U.S. citizenship, and nisei were born in Hawaii, and as such were U.S. citizens.

  Trying to rein in his irritation, Hully said, "The nisei hold dual citizenships, Pop. You know that."

  O. B. frowned over at his son. "Yes, and if war breaks out, what flag will they serve under?"

  Hully gave his dad a sarcastic smile. "And I suppose you think sweet Mrs. Fujimoto is just waiting for a signal from the homeland to slit our throats in the night."

  The junior Burroughs was referring to their effici
ent, kindly, obviously loyal maid, who happened to be the mother of a friend of Hully's; it was his close friendship with a nisei that had got these occasional near arguments going between father and son.

  Despite the absurdity of it, O. B. said, "How do you know she isn't? How do you know your friend Sam won't stab you in the back?" "Because he's my friend, Dad." This was an old argument, and father and son fell into an awkward silence, punctuated by the whistle of wind and the flaglike flapping of white linen.

  Along this stretch of the Ala Moana, a fantastic, breathtaking view presented itself, including Punch Bowl and Round Top and Tantalus and Kaimuki and Diamond Head, the tower of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel peeking over the tops of coconut and date palms like a kid over a fence.

  Finally Hully said, "Jeez, Pop, I never saw so many women in one place in my Me, as on that dock today." His father nodded. "Wives of servicemen, mostly, I suppose," Hullysaid.

  "Some of 'em. Most of them were prostitutes."

  Hully, not sure his father was serious, looked at him, saying, "What? Really?"

  But O. B.'s expression was matter-of-fact; so was his tone. "Sure. And that's the only thing that makes me think Frank Teske might not be entirely nuts."

  "Why is that?"

  "Well, when the prostitutes around a military base panic, and start headin' for the mainland, you gotta wonder-who is more sensitive to the military mind than a hooker?"

  They were rambling across a long wooden bridge over the Ala Moana Canal, which emptied the city's waste water into the ocean. Their lodgings would be coming up soon, and when the wind blew from the south, no one went down to the hotel's beach to swim-at such times O. B. tended to refer to the otherwise comfortable Niumalu Hotel as "Hovel-on-Sewer."

  Soon they were passing what appeared to be an old Southern mansion set stylishly among the lush shrubbery; but it was actually a Japanese teahouse called Ikesu Villa.