Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8th

by Newt Gingrich

  He tried to take it in. He remembered the oil tanks burning.

  “Rest now,” Yamamoto said, and he stepped back from the entry to the bridge, gesturing for Fuchida to be led below.

  “How many?” Fuchida asked.

  “What?”

  “How many lost?”

  There was a momentary pause.

  “A price to be paid,” Yamamoto said, and now his voice was cold, distant.

  “How many, sir?”

  “A third of the strike force has not returned. Thirty-one planes lost, including seven like yours that crashed on landing. Another third damaged.”

  “By the gods,” Fuchida whispered.

  “Victory is never cheap,” Yamamoto replied, and now his voice was sharp, clear, emotion gone, so that those around them, listening, would hear every word and let it spread.

  “I’d have sacrificed this carrier, two carriers this day to inflict the damage we have achieved. Achieved thanks to your leadership and the bravery of our pilots and crews.”

  Fuchida could not reply. Of himself, he did not care. But he thought of the curled-up body of the dying fighter pilot, not a hundred feet away, of the Kates that went in ahead of him and disappeared, and even of the insane bravery of the lone American pilot who in a futile gesture had come up to meet their attack.

  “Their carriers?” Fuchida asked.

  Yamamoto smiled.

  Fuchida could feel the wind shifting, and looking past the admiral he saw that the Akagi was beginning to turn, to come about now that the last of her surviving planes had been recovered. Out across the white-capped seas, destroyers, cruisers, the other carriers were beginning to turn as well.

  “Rest tonight, Commander. We’re moving west to rendezvous with our oilers before dawn. Then south. Our two battleships with their escorts will detach come dark, race due south, and by midnight will begin to bombard what is left of Pearl Harbor.”

  He took that in. It was a plan never discussed. The battleships had been assigned to the task force by surprise, when Yamamoto had taken direct command, with the claim they were support in case the American battleships escaped the air attack and attempted to close.

  “With that bombardment the American carriers, wherever they are hidden, must come out; they cannot lurk in cowardice. And when they do, we will be southwest of Oahu, ready to strike them.”

  He could not reply.

  Yamamoto looked into his eyes and again there was a momentary softening.

  “I am thankful you are alive, my son,” he said, and then there was a sharpness to his voice. “I’ll have need of you tomorrow.”

  His friend led him below to his bunk and helped him to remove his flight suit, and like a loving brother, left for a moment and returned with a small tray, upon which were several rice balls, some strips of tuna, and a cup of sake. He had no stomach for the food, but drained the sake in two gulps and it went straight to his head, so that he did not protest when Genda helped him to crawl into his bunk and switched off the light.

  But sleep would not come. In the darkness he stared at the ceiling… remembering… wondering… what would tomorrow, 9 December 1941, bring.

  ADMIRAL YAMAMOTO LOOKED up as Genda stepped into the small conference room.

  “How is our hero?”

  “The saki knocked him out, he’ll sleep,” Genda replied.

  “Good, he was pushed to the edge today.”

  “He did his duty for the Emperor, as expected of all of us,” Genda replied, and then could not resist, “as you did as well, sir.”

  Genda looked over at his commander. Never had he felt such love for a man, but Yamamoto looked far from pleased, brows furrowed, head lowered, and finally he spoke, not to anyone in particular, but just in general to the staff gathered around him.

  “We have achieved much, but I also fear we have achieved the wrong thing,” he finally said, and his comments stilled the room. No one dared to reply as to what he meant.

  “How so, sir?” Genda asked.

  Yamamoto was silent for a moment. “The report of our young hero Fuchida on the surface reads as a victory,” he was silent again, “but it might be a report of a tragedy.”

  Genda and Kusaka were silent, saying nothing.

  “If you have misgivings,” Genda interjected, almost fearful now of what he was saying, “withdraw and our victory is complete. The third strike did fearsome damage.”

  Yamamoto shook his head.

  “Long before this attack took final form, I had insisted upon one key element, which would not be the responsibility of our navy, but instead, the government and foreign minister.

  “You know how many years I spent in America, the close friends I have there, my admiration for so much of what they are, who they are, what they can achieve. They have a different sense of war than we do. We see war as a continuum. Peace can change to war, and from war back into peace without moral qualms, if by so doing the position of one is assured, and yes, the position of the other is not pushed beyond a certain breaking point where they would then choose death rather than dishonor. In our own history we are replete with stories of warlords who contended, fought with honor, but did not push too far, so that in the end peace could again be achieved and perhaps even a day of alliance.

  “Americans see war differently They see it as an aberration, a disruption of the norm. But if forced to war, it must always for them be a moral war, a moral crusade. Though any sensible man knew the absurdity of it, their war with Spain was whipped up with false reports of Spanish atrocities. They entered the last war with the idealism that it would end war. Even the detestable Washington Treaty was dreamed up by them as a means of preventing war.”

  He sighed again. “Months ago, when I appeared before the Emperor to discuss the plans for action, I had been assured, the Emperor had been assured by our Foreign Office, that the Americans would be informed, at least one hour prior to the attack that negotiations would cease and all diplomatic efforts broken off, as near as possible to an open declaration of war.

  “I was assured that this would be done in the clearest, most unambiguous of terms, making it clear, prior to the start of hostilities, that a state of war would therefore exist. From that, I then felt assured that a warning would immediately be sent from Washington to all bases.”

  Genda could not help but shake his head.

  “What? To give our enemy time to prepare to receive us? It would have doubled, perhaps tripled our losses.”

  “Why is this a concern now?” Kusaka asked, his hostility of earlier dropping away, so troubled were the admiral’s features, the sound of his voice.

  “If you knew America as I did,” Yamamoto replied softly, “yes, you would understand.

  “I have always believed in the old code of the samurai. That if sent to kill a man and he is asleep, the only honorable action to take is to awaken him first, to let him dress to face death and take up his blade and step outside where family will not witness the fight. To kill without warning is the act of a ninja, an assassin, a coward, not of an honorable man. I fear that is now how America will see this day, and the result will be a whirlwind of rage.

  “We have perhaps focused too much on the plan of the strike itself rather than the intent of the mission of this strike. May I ask of you, what was the mission this day?”

  And he looked at Genda.

  “To render inoperative the American Fleet in the Pacific.”

  Yamamoto nodded in reply.

  “I fear that a most significant part of the plan, to at least give to the Americans a warning by the rules that they observe to apply to war, has failed. I had hoped that in a fair and honorable fight, we would best the Americans.

  “Instead, yes, we have sunk their battleships, which according to the theories of some of our own doctrines are obsolete anyhow, and their carriers are still at sea. But far worse, far, far worse, we have enraged them.”

  “War brings about rage,” Kusaka interjected. “It is the essence of war
and helpful when directed.”

  “You have not lived there,” Yamamoto snapped. “I have.

  “This American sense of fair play seems ludicrous at times. But there is a core of honor to it. From what Commander Fuchida said, it is obvious no warning was delivered prior to our attack, otherwise, at least on the ground, their defenses in response to the first wave would have been as intense as this last attack.

  “To Americans that is, as they say, ‘a cheap shot,’ a sneak attack. To them despicable. If anything it will serve only to arouse them to a fighting fury. They will not see this as a limited war, as we do, to settle the balance of power in the Western Pacific, but instead as a war now of revenge, and they will unleash their full fury upon us. It is what I had feared; it is what I had hoped would never happen. But it has now happened and we must face that reality.”

  Genda was silent for a moment then finally ventured to speak.

  “Sir, you say our attack has enraged the Americans and now they will fight it as total war. Then I must ask, why venture to stay in these waters?” To his own surprise he found himself looking over at Kusaka.

  “Perhaps we should withdraw after all.”

  Yamamoto shook his head violently.

  “No, you do not see it as I do,” he replied sharply, almost angrily. “Now we must fight all the harder, with all the more fury at the start. The primary target is no longer Pearl Harbor,” Yamamoto snapped, “though the targets to be hit are worthy.”

  He looked over at Genda.

  “By hitting again, and in so doing, threatening to hit again tomorrow morning, we will sow fear. They will assume we will invade as a followup. Their carriers will be forced to stand by, hoping to jump us. The carriers are now my immediate operational goal beyond the destruction we can still rain down on Pearl Harbor.

  “Their carriers are somewhere at sea. I am willing to bet all that they are nearby. Perhaps not a hundred miles south or west of Pearl Harbor on maneuvers, perhaps toward Midway or Wake Island, maneuvering there or delivering additional aircraft. I plan to seek them out tomorrow… and I plan to destroy them. I plan to take this war to the Americans with a ferocity they have yet to imagine. That is why I ordered the tankers to stay close to us instead of sailing off to a northeastern rendezvous point as the original plan provided. I wanted the flexibility to respond to reality, and I did not want to be trapped by assumptions that might fail.”

  “But our plan to strike, then fall back, to lure them into the Marshalls, to form a defensive barrier to weaken them till they seek a peace?”

  Yamamoto shook his head forcefully.

  “I fear that our plan for a negotiated peace once we had destroyed their fleet is no longer possible. Beneath our brave Commander Fuchida’s report there is a message concealed. The Foreign Ministry has failed to deliver what was promised.”

  He sighed and looked off.

  “I know America. There will be no negotiations as there were with the Russians in our last war. This will now be bitter and a fight to the death, until they realize the futility of a fight against us.

  “That leaves me with but one option. To so thoroughly cripple their fleet, to so completely destroy their carriers, their docks, their ships at Pearl, that it will not be six months, but a year, two years before they can even hope to respond.

  “If need be we must now take this war clear to their West Coast to sow panic, and in that panic irresolve. We must sweep the ocean clean of their shipping. Let Hawaii be the bait now. Cripple it beyond repair but do not take it. Force them to try and keep the shipping lanes open and now their navy will be stretched on two fronts, here and in the Atlantic.

  “I believe some thought that after this, after what too many considered to be a raid merely to cripple, we could run riot for six months and seize what we need, dig in, then let the Americans come and defeat them till they grow weary. I can tell you. They will not grow weary. They will be filled with a terrible resolve and that will be to prosecute this war until Japan is destroyed.

  “Our only chance now? We must carry the war, instead, to them. That is our only hope.”

  He fell silent, eyes again closed as if looking off to some distant, dark land.

  “Commander Genda, we shall find their carriers and sink them.

  “And this time, when we do sink them, they will not merely settle into the mud of the harbor to be restored, their trained crews taken off to be used on other ships. No, we must sink them in a thousand fathoms of water, all hands aboard, and thus destroy every carrier in the Pacific before the year is finished.

  “It will be a different war now, a more terrible one,” Yamamoto said, his features fixed, cool, as if another hand of poker had just been drawn.

  Two Hundred Fifty Miles West of Pearl Harbor

  The Enterprise

  5:00 p.m. Local Time

  Admiral William “Bull” Halsey crumpled the note that had just been handed to him by his signal officer.

  The news was horrifying. Every battleship, sunk or seriously damaged by two waves of Jap attackers. Thousands feared dead, the once proud fleet a shambles, oil tank farms, dry dock, repair facilities, and more ships destroyed in a third strike. And damn all, still no one thought to track which direction they had departed to after the strike was over. For all he knew the Japs were fifty miles away, or five hundred miles away. He had been running his scout squadron ragged all day looking for something, anything.

  He stood up, walked out onto the flying bridge and looked down as a Grumman Wildcat prepared to lift off, to maintain patrol over the fleet.

  Where were the damn Japs? Not a single fool back on Oahu had bothered to take the time to just watch for a few minutes, to see which way the Japs had departed. Where did they rendezvous after the strike, did they run north, west, east, south? They could be anywhere within two hundred miles of Oahu in any direction… more than one hundred thousand

  USS Arizona (BB-39) sunk and burning furiously, 7 December 1941. Her forward magazines had exploded when she was hit by a Japanese bomb. At left, men on the stern of USS Tennessee (BB-43) are playing fire hoses on the water to force burning oil away from their ship.

  NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER

  square miles of ocean to hide in… but by God he would find the bastards.

  Turning, he looked back at his staff.

  “By the time we are done with them,” he snarled, “Japanese will only be spoken in hell. Now let’s go find their carriers.”

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  “LEST WE FORGET”

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  PEARL HARBOR

  Copyright © 2007 by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen.

  Excerpt from Days of Infamy copyright © 2008 by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen.

  All rights reserved.

  For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007009512

  ISBN: 978-1-4299-2177-0

  St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition / May 2007

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / April 2009

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

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