Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8th

by Newt Gingrich

  “Bring us about on a heading of 290, twenty knots, signal our escorts the same and sound general quarters. This is no drill.”

  Pearl Harbor

  7:40 a.m. Local Time

  James Watson, unable to contain himself, pushed back from his chair. He needed air, fresh air, not the steady hum of the air conditioner pumping its lifeless breath into the room. He had given up waiting for Kimmel and tried to return to his work, but it was impossible to concentrate.

  He stood up, the others on duty looking at him with weary eyes. They were all half-crazed, he knew, but he knew as well that some thought him even more than half-crazed during these last few days. But no one said anything. You had to be crazy to be in this basement anyhow, a house of madmen, a basement of Canutes raging against the impending storm.

  He walked over to the door, pushed it open, held his ID card up for the marine guard. A new kid, he didn’t know him, nor did he bother to even say good morning. The kid looked numbed, ready to doze off, kept awake only by the fact that he had to stay on his feet and would get a solid reaming if his sergeant found him slumped against the wall with lights out.

  Back aching, James went up the long flight of stairs and out the second door; again the flash of his ID card and then into the foyer. The place was a ghost town. One officer hurried by, clutching a piece of paper. He didn’t recognize him. There was some flurry of activity in the signals room and he looked in through the open door. Someone was talking about the “Ward.” He wasn’t sure, “Ward,” a destroyer he thought, but someone was certainly fired up over it. A petty officer, seeing him looking in, went over and closed the door. He felt the gesture a bit rude but then shrugged his shoulders and headed out the main door.

  If Kimmel had arrived there would at least be some semblance of activity, at least some playacting that the weekend staff were doing their work and were not just dozing off behind desks or staring vacantly out windows.

  He needed air, fresh air, and still clutching his coffee mug he went out the front door, yet another flash of an ID card, a mindless ritual he now thought, for who cared? He could show a Mongolian driver’s license with a picture of Mussolini on it and chances were the nineteen-year-old marine guard would not even notice. It was Sunday morning in Hawaii, and if the guards were awake at all, they were contemplating when they’d get off duty and hit the beach, the surf, the girls, the cold beer, maybe even to catch the Army-Navy football game on a shortwave radio, which back stateside should be starting up by now.

  He looked up toward the main gate as he stepped outside, hoping against hope that Kimmel might just be pulling in, but the parking spot marked for the admiral was empty. In fact, nearly all the parking slots were empty.

  Oh well, he reasoned. Maybe for the best after all. His Cassandralike warnings had gone unheeded. It was well past sunup; if he tried to intercept Kimmel on the way in, waving a map with circles drawn on it, predicting the Japanese might very well be within three hundred miles of Pearl, he’d look like a complete and total fool, coffee mug in hand, shirt stained, unshaven. Kimmel was a good man, would smile and nod, most likely thank him for his concerns, then mark him off mentally as yet another reservist nutcase who perhaps needed a transfer for his own mental health.

  He walked around the side of the building, yawning, covering his mouth as a couple of marines walked by and saluted smartly. He had to shift the mug to return the salute, and then realized he was completely out of uniform, no hat, shirt rumpled and, as usual, stained. Damn, he needed a cigarette. He shifted the cup of coffee to his claw hand and with his good hand reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a pack. At least down here, he could keep them in that pocket, not having to hide them from Margaret. He fished one out, flicking the pack up with his one hand, feeling slightly guilty at the taste of the tobacco, put the pack in his pants pocket, pulled out his Zippo, and lit it, all while still balancing the half-full mug of coffee in his claw hand.

  There, his image was complete, he thought with a wry smile. Coffee mug, stained shirt, no hat, cigarette dangling, a pirate-type look with his mechanical hand to finish the impression. But then again, as he looked over to one of the walkways, he was no worse looking than some of the last of the overnight liberty boys coming back late for flag raising and morning roll. These last few were the really pathetic ones, drunk as lords, staggering down to the launches to take them back to their ships. If they had any sober thoughts in their minds, they concerned the fact that their chiefs would have them written up, with liberty denied for a month to come and plenty of duty cleaning the heads. They were a sorry-looking lot, one of them sadly saluting him as his comrades pushed him along, two others with a passed-out comrade between them, his face puffy, obviously on the bad end of a barroom or back alley brawl.

  A marine sergeant, sharp-looking, heading in the other direction, slowed at their approach, seemed ready to lay into the group, then just simply told them to move along and get back to their ships. He caught James’s eye, saluted, and shrugged in a sort of “oh what the hell” way, as if to say there was no use in chewing out a bunch of drunk kids. James nodded in agreement and continued down to his favorite spot looking out over the harbor.

  He settled down on one of the benches, mug balanced in his claw, cigarette still between his lips.

  A beautiful morning. Forget about Kimmel, he thought. I’ve been here since Friday morning. Damn all, forget it for now. Margaret was most likely awake, God bless her. There wasn’t one wife in a thousand who would tolerate this schedule of his. He had promised to be home by Saturday afternoon so they could go out for dinner and a movie. She had gone to bed alone, and woken up alone.

  Go home, he thought. Sign out and go home. Grab a shower, try and stay awake, and listen as she talks, suggests skipping church and heading to a secluded beach. She’d know that five minutes after they got there, he’d be fast asleep, but she had come to accept that. She’d most likely even pack along a small nip of scotch to lull him into an afternoon of quiet sleep under the palms, the sound of the surf gentle and soothing.

  If I was still teaching, he thought, I’d be home with her right now, just waking up, her by my side. Their old Sunday ritual of him making breakfast, a habit started when young Davy was a boy and he would be home on leave, their boy tottering in to wake up “Pop,” and he’d let Margaret get a few more minutes sleep while “her men” pampered her. He felt a stinging in his eyes. No, don’t think of Davy, never think of that, at least not here, at least not during the daytime. Only when alone, when Margaret would not see the tears, during the middle of the night.

  He took a deep drag on his cigarette, the smoke stinging his eyes now, causing him to blink. He watched the last of the kids piling into one of the launches. Davy would be their age now, and he pushed that away, too many times, too many of those kids, most of them fresh-faced boys who had hurriedly joined the navy, with its promise of adventure, rather than get swept into the draft for the army, reminded him of Davy, especially the tall, lanky ones, uniforms a bit too baggy on their narrow shoulders, but filled with a childlike pride and swagger after a night of being “a man,” drinking beer with their buddies and making feeble attempts at picking up a girl.

  He dropped his cigarette, took off his glasses, and wiped the mist from his eyes, then put his glasses back on. He lowered his head, a bit embarrassed by the sudden rush of sentiment, pulled out another cigarette and lit it, and raised his head.

  He caught a flicker of movement and looked off to the northwest. Just a dot moving, more dots, dozens of them. A bird? Birds? Strange looking. What was it? Though the sun was to his back he shaded his eyes from the glare reflecting off the water. Another movement from the corner of his eye. The deck of the Nevada, bandsmen gathering on the stern for the Sunday morning flag raising, the designated band for the harbor this morning to play the National Anthem. On the submarines anchored nearby, several crew members were out, two young sailors, one of them carrying the flag under his arm as he came up out of
the aft hatch. Eyes would turn to the signal tower atop the Navy Yard’s water tank. In a few minutes the blue “prep” flag would go up, and then be lowered, signaling for all ships to have the national colors hoisted. The ritual, particularly on Sunday mornings, was done without much fanfare, the unlucky sailors assigned then quickly going back below decks, and if off duty, either grabbing breakfast or a little more sack time.

  On the last of the returning Liberty Boats, the drunks and the half beat-up kid were loading aboard. The beat-up kid was now awake, looking around, exclaiming just where in the hell was he, and then he paused, looking to the north and, like James, shading his eyes and pointing.

  A few more heads were up, turning, shading eyes, looking to the north, the west.

  From the deck of the Nevada came the sound of a trumpeter tuning up, a few notes of a Glenn Miller piece, then back to a scale so the band master wouldn’t chew him out for being disrespectful of the ceremony about to begin.

  They would start the National Anthem in a moment, and he stood up.

  He started to put his coffee mug down on the bench, ready to drop the cigarette, then looked back up again. It was 07:53 a.m., 7 December 1941… and at that instant Lieutenant Commander James Watson felt a frightful chill.

  Akagi

  7:48 a.m.

  The signal officer burst onto the bridge, holding a sheet of paper.

  “Tora… Tora… Tora!” he shouted.

  A cheer went up, men slapping each other on the back, Genda looking back at Yamamoto, who was sitting in a chair, silent, just staring out to sea.

  “Anything else?” Genda asked.

  “The report from the scout plane that flew over a half hour ago. Nine battleships, but no carriers.”

  “But complete surprise, though,” Yamamoto finally said, breaking his long silence since after the report from the scout plane, launched from one of the cruisers escorting the fleet, had come in.

  “Strange.”

  “How so, sir?”

  “I assumed the carriers not being in meant that they had warning and they had made for sea. See if you can find out if any of the battleships are preparing to move. How many of their planes are up? I must know. Surely Washington must have warned them after our embassy handed over our note as planned.”

  And then he fell silent, looking back out to sea.

  7:51 a.m.

  Clearing the crest of the Waianae Range, Strike Leader Fuchida could see it now! It was the harbor, straight ahead. So intently studied on maps, the models, photographs, all of it so stark and clear now. He could see it!

  At an approach average speed of just over three miles per minute he was closing at what seemed an amazing speed. What was shadowy, dulled by morning mist, was now beginning to stand out clear, the “West Loch,” Ford Island, the naval yard, and battleship row. Already he could see three clusters, two ships moored side by side, as studied in the maps and photographs, their high gunnery-control spotting towers indeed looking like pagodas. He looked to the east. The first of the Zeroes were now directly over Ford Island, winging up, breaking into the classic split S, the diving roll into a strafing attack to clear the way, behind them a formation of Vals preparing to do the same. Not a single burst of antiaircraft fire coming up, not a single American Air Corps green or navy blue aircraft in the sky. Not a single one!

  Over the harbor, the same. In the final seconds he half expected to see a swarm of their planes diving down on them, concealed above the thin clouds overhead, or lurking, circling in the mountain canyons, ready to burst out. Not a single black burst of gunfire over the harbor, which was all so closer now.

  They had done it!

  Pearl Harbor

  07:53:30

  The dots were turning, no longer dots, razor-thin silhouettes, reflected light glistening off canopies, no sound yet.

  Around Watson only a few noticed, the beat-up sailor, a couple of the boys on the deck of the submarine.

  A distant thump, more felt through the soles of his feet than heard. Turning to look north, it was up toward Schofield, Wheeler Army Air Corps base. Was that smoke? The first notes of “The Star Spangled Banner” drifted across the waters. The white-clad band on the fantail of the Nevada was starting a few minutes early this morning; someone must have lowered the signal flag. He looked at his watch, calculating from Tokyo time: it was still nearly five minutes before eight. Ships’ bells began to echo, flags started to go up, dozens of flags, from the smallest tug and submarine to the fantail of Oklahoma directly across the bay.

  He came to attention, but still held his coffee mug, just letting the cigarette drop.

  But some of the flag raisers were not watching to their duty, they were pausing, looking, pointing.

  And then it struck. A multitude of sensations, all flooding into consciousness at once, each in itself near to overwhelming… together a nightmare.

  Clearing the treetops lining the north end of the harbor, a dozen planes skimmed down low, full throttle, a whining hum, heading straight for Ford Island. A winking flash from their wing tips, the sight of it an instant flash memory back to the strafing of the Panay.

  PBYs clustered wingtip to wingtip began to burst into flames. One of the attacking planes, white with a red sun on its fuselage, banked sharply, sweeping toward Nevada.

  the bombs bursting in air,

  gave proof through the night…

  The bandmaster started to swing his baton wildly, speeding up the anthem, as the plane banked over Nevada. Watson saw the red sunbursts on either wing.

  A rising shriek, that corkscrew-down-the-spine sensation of plane engines at full throttle, half a dozen roaring in not from the west, nor north, but behind him, screaming past him, not a hundred feet away, the sound of their engines dopplering down as they raced past, dropping lower, leveling out.

  He could hear the backfiring of the engines as the pilots throttled back, skimming lower. The details stood out so stark and clear. Dark green Kate torpedo bombers. The aft gunner of one looking straight at him, expressionless, red sun emblazoned on the fuselage, and strapped underneath, torpedoes.

  More memories of the Panay, the plane soaring overhead as he floundered in the mud. My God, not again, not again.

  An explosion, startling, slapping him hard, mud, water, fire rising in a column on the far side of Ford Island. A plane veering up and away from the exploding column, another plane coming directly across Ford Island, skimming across the bow of the old California anchored at the southern end of battleship row, a torpedo dropping free from that lone plane heading straight toward the huge number one dry dock, which contained the Pennsylvania.

  Suddenly dozens of planes were crisscrossing back and forth in every direction.

  Strange, even in the mad confusion he could identify them, the low-flying Kates with torpedoes slung, Zeroes screaming by like bullets, almost a blur, guns beginning to fire. A plane turned toward Nevada opening fire on the formation of bandsmen.

  “O’er the land of the free… and the home of the brave…” The last notes trailing out, now the sound of gunfire, a Zero strafing the Nevada’s deck, bandsmen scrambling, even from that distance he could see the large flag punching and shuddering, like the body of a boxer taking blows. And that struck him in that instant with a gut-searing intensity… they were actually shooting at the flag, the bastards!

  Flags all across the harbor were hoisting up, a few fluttered back down, the men dropping lanyards and running, a few sticking to their ritual posts, the boys on the submarine nearest him tying off and then running, screaming…

  “Japs, it’s the Japs!”

  Back to the Kates—it was all so overwhelming, so much to absorb.

  And in those few seconds of trying to absorb so much, the formation of Kates swinging out from the narrow channel and into the loch, aiming straight for battleship row, began to release their loads. One torpedo, another, another… a

  Pearl Harbor attack, 7 December 1941, Japanese Navy Type-99 Carrier Bomber (�
�Val”) in action during the attack.

  NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER

  dozen of them. He could see the splashes, but didn’t someone say it was impossible to effectively drop torpedoes in a shallow harbor?

  But they surfaced, he could see the trail of oxygen bubbles as they streaked across the narrow loch at over forty knots, the planes continuing to race straight toward their targets then pulling up, banking away.

  The white bubbling streaks foamed across the muddy harbor.

  The flash was startling. In an instant a column of water soared upward from the port side of the Oklahoma, impossibly high it seemed, higher than the tall pagodas of the gunnery control towers.

  My God, not my ship! Not her. He remembered in that instant the flight with Fuchida, simulating what was now happening and looked upward, wondering. Are you up there? Are you up there, you bastard!

  From a quarter mile away, the roar of the explosion hit him a second and a half later, but already he was staggered by the impact, as the concussion raced across the channel, slamming into the soles of his feet as he stood at the water’s edge. Another towering explosion amidships of the Oklahoma… he never knew a torpedo could fling such a column of water heavenward, a flash thought of that terrible force bursting through the armor plating, smashing lower decks, pulping any sailors below, most of the poor bastards still asleep, thousands of tons of water crushing interior bulkheads like a hammer blow shattering a fragile crystal.

  West Virginia: another column soaring up. Arizona, though docked inward with a supply vessel anchored on its port side: two more explosions, the torpedoes passing under the shallow-draft ship beside it. Foaming waves raced outward in concentric circles from each of the blasts, hundreds of tons of water now beginning to cascade down like a hurricane blast.

  The vast bulk of the Oklahoma seemed to actually lift clear of the water, hovered, then sagged back down… more Kates screamed past him. He felt a snap whip blow, as if someone had clapped a hand next to his head, and turning saw that one of the tail gunners was swinging his machine gun back and forth, firing wildly. James felt a strange shudder, almost a detachment. The bastard had been shooting at him. He could almost see the man’s face as the plane raced away… there was no immediate reaction within. He still stood there numbed… another spread of torpedoes slapped into the water, more wakes. My God, more for the Oklahoma… hadn’t she already taken enough?