Others broke formation and maneuvered, pulling hard on the stick and yoke of their dive bombers, but no match for the nimble Japanese fighter planes. Yet the rear gunners were blazing away at any enemy plane that lined up for a kill, and some were scoring hits. Of the ten SBDs that managed to get over a target, six more were tailed by lethal Japanese fighter pilots, and gunned down as they braved that last final hour. Two pilots had been so rattled by the swirling air battle that they found themselves too low to get into the fight. They broke off and sped away, finding a bank of sea mist to hide them as they desperately headed home.
Saburo Shindo saw them briefly, noting their heading, and quickly radioed the strike planes to the south. An order had been given that if any clear sighting report emerged in the hours ahead, all 5th Carrier Division strike planes still carrying bombs and torpedoes were to break off from their approach, run to Pearl Harbor and look to find the American carriers at sea. Shindo’s frantic call urged his comrades to follow the American dive bombers, and that was the only reason he decided to spare them, for they would have been easy kills, just as all the others were.
The American Wildcats fought their desperate defense, getting three kills, but losing five of eight planes, with the other three damaged and looking to escape.
Down on the deck, the torpedo planes were struggling to line up on targets as the skies around them puffed up with dark deadly blossoms of fire and jet black smoke. The Zeroes came down after them, getting eight, and three more were so badly damaged by the enemy flak that they broke off, jettisoning their torpedoes and trying to find a way out of the death trap. Seven actually got torpedoes into the water, but four of those had launched much too soon, the planes being harried by the hot tracer rounds of enemy fire, and the jittery pilots wanting to just drop their fish and run for their lives. Those four had no chance to score a hit, but three brave men held on, one with the right wing of his plane on fire, painting the sky with a dark line of smoke that was aimed right at the carrier Kaga.
They all got off a clean shot, then banked away in a wild retreat, one with a bright winged Zero right on its tail. Two of the three torpedoes ran true, but one soon bobbed up to the surface where it was easily spotted in time for Captain Jisaku Okada to make a ten point turn to avoid the attack. Kaga turned, but her 42,000 ton displacement responded sluggishly. Okada could see that he would avoid the first torpedo, but there were two, and the second could not be evaded. He clenched his jaw, about to endure the shame of being the first sea Captain in the Japanese Navy to be struck by the enemy, but that fate was reserved for another that day. The last torpedo would have struck home had its engine not failed, sending it diving into the depths to be forever forgotten.
Thus far, the American attack had been a terrible disaster, but there were still those last two SBDs who had kept on in their dive when the other two broke off, the last of the Mohegans from Bombing Six—and they were right over the Red Castle. Down came the bombs, a pair of 500 pounders delivered by two intrepid American pilots—Ensign G. H. Goldsmith and Lieutenant John Van Buren. Their Joss was very good that day, and Van Buren put his bomb right on the nose of the unwieldy carrier, where it would strike the low bow flight deck and explode. Goldsmith’s bomb just skirted the starboard side funnel where it blew away part of the cowlings on the steam vent and shotgunned shrapnel into the guts of the ship, killing fifteen sailors.
To the angry Japanese fighter pilots above, they looked in horror to see Akagi, the fleet flagship, had been hit twice, bleeding dark black smoke like a harpooned whale.
The Red Castle was on fire.
* * *
In the ninety minutes it took the planes of Enterprise to launch, assemble, reach their presumed target and die, the Lexington had trimmed 45 miles off the range and was already spotting planes on her long deck for takeoff. The crazy cruiser skipper who had wanted his chance as a carrier commander was about to get his wish come true in a way he never expected. But in many ways, the Lexington was even more ill equipped than Enterprise was for this fight.
The ship had just delivered 18 old Marine Vindicator dive bombers to Midway, clearing her decks for the action that was now underway. Lady Lex could send up 18 SBD-2 dive bombers in Bombing Two, and an equal number from Search Two. Behind them there would be only 12 TBD-1 torpedo planes, all watched over by 17 obsolete F2A-3 Brewster Buffalos. Ten would fly escort, leaving only seven left for CAP, and one of those failed to make it off the deck that morning due to engine problems.
Lieutenant Commander Jim Thatch and his wingman Ensign Eddy Sellstrom were in two of those Buffalos, the last planes off the deck that day. Historically, they would have to wait until February 20 before they trained their guns on an enemy plane, a Japanese Type 97 flying boat near Rabaul. This time their baptism by fire would come much sooner. They were up with Lt. Stanley and Ensign Haynes, and Lieutenants Butch O’Hare and Marion Dufilho were the last two in the CAP formation.
Those six men were Lexington’s shield, in six lumbering planes that had been very well named when they were dubbed Buffalos. They were so heavy that when the British received them, they ended up cutting the loads of ammo and fuel, and replacing the guns in a vain attempt to get more performance out of the plane. In the end they made trainers of the few they received, for the Buffalo was simply outclassed in every respect by their own fighters. A few surplus planes delivered to Finland were derisively called “flying beer bottles,” though the planes still bested the older Russian fighters they faced. In the Pacific, they could not even match the early Japanese A5M Claude, let alone the acrobatic Zeroes they might soon encounter in this desperate hour. The plane was almost as fast as a Zero at 320MPH, but the Japanese plane was far more maneuverable. The stubby fuselage of the buffalo would soon come to be called the “flying coffin” by Marine pilots, and it was a very fitting rebuke.
The strike wing started on its way after receiving a better report on the enemy location. It was going to be a very long run for the TBDs, for the action was almost beyond their ‘point of no return’ for the Devastator, which had a fairly short strike radius. Down on the flight deck before takeoff, Ensign Chuck Hamilton was fresh from the strike briefing room, his cheeks red in the morning wind.
“Did I hear that right?” he said to a mate, Lieutenant Ed Hurst. “They said the Japs were spotted 175 miles out.”
“You heard it right,” said Hurst as he started to climb up the wing of his plane.
“But sir, those torpedo planes have a combat radius of only 200 miles, if even that. How are they supposed to get home?”
Hurst gave him a look, rubbed his nose. “Now you’re starting to sound like Walkie Talkie,” he said, referring to a squadron mate who always seemed to be talking aloud to himself on the hanger deck, Gunner Talkington. “Don’t you think the Brass know that? They’ll move the damn ship after we take off, that’s all. Besides, if the Torpies can’t do the job, we will. Now get in your goddamned plane.”
All told, Lexington was going to send out 58 more planes to look for the Japanese, and they had a fairly good idea how to find them. On the way in, they could hear the action then underway as the Enterprise group ran into the buzz saw of those enemy Zeroes on CAP defense. More than one man swallowed hard as they heard the frantic calls of their comrades, some yelling for their mates to turn, others to bail out when their planes were scorched with fire. They had been told they were going up against five or six enemy carriers, yet the futility of what they were now doing never entered the minds of the pilots. They kept on, steady on the stick, though a good number prayed, while others silently said their inner goodbyes to loved ones they left behind in the states.
Yet now fate would play a cruel game. When the planes of Carrier Division 5 responded to the urging of Saburo Shindo, they eventually spotted those two wayward US planes and started following them. But the American pilots had their return heading wrong, and instead of leading the enemy back to the Enterprise, they had turned 15 degrees to starboard and they
were now leading them directly back to Lexington.
The Japanese had 27 B5N Kates off Shokaku, all expecting to launch their torpedoes at the battleships in Pearl Harbor, and all equipped with torpedoes designed to run shallow. The Kates off Zuikaku were too far along and had been sent on to Pearl, but the dive bombers off that carrier turned back and joined those of Shokaku to put a total of 54 Vals in the Japanese strike wave. These, combined with 12 Zeroes on escort, would send a total of 93 planes out in the hunt for the American carriers, and while it was Enterprise that had picked this fight and thrown the first punch, they were all going to find Lady Lex instead.
Those six Brewster Buffalos over Newton’s Task Group would each be double teamed by a pair of escorting Zeroes, and the remaining 81 strike planes looked down to see the Lexington, escorted by the heavy cruisers Chicago, Portland and Astoria, with five destroyers.
Again, the results were coldly mathematical, though the Japanese torpedo bombers would find the wooden fins rigged to their lances had them running much too shallow in the rising swells, and many well aimed torpedoes would run astray on the open sea. That said, they were going to put three of those 27 torpedoes into Lexington, and one would get through the torpedo protection system and strike a reservoir of stored Avgas. The resulting explosion rocked the ship violently to starboard, and for a moment it looked as though the weight of that prominent superstructure would pull it all the way over. But Lexington righted herself, though she was soon listing heavily to port where that hit had been taken.
Another two torpedoes found her closest defender, the cruiser Astoria, and that ship would not survive. The Vals would do a little better, scoring five bomb hits that savaged the flight deck of Lexington, and a sixth that struck flush on the wide stack, blasting it open and sending a pall of heavy smoke over the entire scene. Astoria would also take two hits, with two on Chicago and one on Portland, and the destroyer Flusser was blown completely out of the water when a 500 pound bomb struck and ignited a torpedo rack, but the other four destroyers raced about to avoid harm.
Not long after their home carrier was mortally wounded, the planes off Lexington found what they were looking for…
Chapter 6
Aboard Lexington, the situation was going from bad to worse. A 500 pound bomb had exploded just forward of the center elevator, opening a hole twelve feet wide and penetrating to the hangar deck where it caused a great deal of fragment damage. Another bomb had fallen just inboard of the main island, apparently without detonating, but it was a delayed action bomb, and when it reached the 2nd deck a hapless seaman stared in horror as the spinning fuse activator suddenly stopped.
It was the last thing he saw. Another bomb had just missed the stern of the ship, but had enough explosive power to start fires on the fantail and temporarily interfere with the ship’s steering when the rudder was batted to one side by the force of the detonation. Yet the most telling blow fell right on the forward elevator, punching through to deck three where it ignited to send smoke and fire into all the hanger deck spaces in that area.
Even taken together, the ship might have recovered from this damage, but not with the serious torpedo hits thrown in on the port side, and the heavy fires below decks there when that Avgas blew. Lexington was soon in a heavy list, and Admiral Newton’s experience as a carrier commander was coming to an most unfortunate end. He could see that the situation was now beyond saving, and gave the order to abandon ship. Signals flashed to the four remaining destroyers in his screen to make ready to recover survivors in the water. As to where his planes would land when they returned, he ordered his senior flight operations officer to notify the strike leader they had to either look for the Enterprise or somehow make it to any land base they might find.
When that news reached the planes in flight, Ensign Chuck Hamilton swore under his breath. They had not even seen the enemy yet and the damn Japs had already put the hurts on Lady Lex. This mission had been a long shot from the beginning, with the presumed targets right at, or beyond the edge of the point of no return, at least for the torpedo bombers. He had a little more range in his Dauntless, but Hurst had told him they were going to move the damn ship, and that was not going to happen. Now they had to look for the Enterprise, and he had absolutely no idea where that ship might be. With a sinking feeling he tightened his grip on the stick, saying nothing to his machine gunner in the back. He knew in his bones he was probably never going to lay eyes on the Enterprise, and getting over to Oahu would be just as difficult.
Angry that the war was starting off so badly for the ship and his mates, he swore he’d make this run a way to get even. Seconds later, he heard the strike leader shout out a warning: Enemy Carriers! Three O’clock! He and the rest of Bombing Two were about to get their day in the fire.
* * *
Down on the long flight deck of the carrier Kaga, standing just aft of the command island, Air Commander Sata Naohito looked in horror at the dark cloud mushrooming up from the fleet flagship. Kaga had been steaming abreast of Akagi, and had only now turned away when Captain Okada had maneuvered to avoid those torpedoes, which gave Naohito an excellent view of the other ship after the turn. He had clearly seen the first hit on the short forward deck, and his initial thought had been that it was fortunate Akagi had not completed her planned refit to extend the main top flight deck all the way to the bow. Now Akagi was only using that lower bow deck to launch and recover her small detachment of sea planes, which were then stored on a much smaller middle deck just below the main deck. That hit was clearly going to prevent any further launch or recovery of a seaplane, but it should not interfere with the carrier’s main flight deck operations.
We were lucky to avoid those torpedoes, he thought, and if Akagi had to suffer this insult, the ship was also lucky to be hit where it was, right on the nose. The American pilots were brave, but unskilled. Their minds were on the flack being thrown at them by our 5-inch batteries, and not on the weapons they hoped to strike us with. That is always a fatal distraction at the moment of attack. A good pilot must lose all sense of self in that moment. He must become nothing more than a part of his aircraft, a simple machine of death, with not the slightest inkling of his own fate coming to mind. They should not have even come this close.
He watched as a Zero chased down the last of the torpedo bombers that had made that threatening run on the Kaga, gunning it down with bright fire from the white wings. He could not see what the other bomb had done to Akagi, but from the looks of things, the heavy smoke told him the ventilation stacks on the side of the carrier had been hit. That would be a nuisance, the smoke obscuring flight deck operations, but it was also not a serious blow. For a moment he thought he saw the hot orange tongues of a fire starting on the bow of the other ship, and the smoke there became heavier. That was most likely the fuel from one of the ready seaplanes on that deck, he thought. Most unfortunate, particularly for the pilot who was waiting in that cockpit.
Yet now his attention was suddenly pulled skyward again, and he could hear shouts from other watchmen on the island above, see their stiff arms pointing. He looked to see the sky darkening with tiny black specks, and he could just hear the drone of their engines. An air duel began there as he watched, where two Shotai that had been on high overwatch now dived to engage the enemy planes, but the bulk of the CAP had been scattered in its pursuit of the first American strike, and many planes had dived to low elevation to attack those enemy torpedo planes.
With a sudden pulse of anxiety, he realized that all these planes could not be coming from a single American carrier. There had to be at least two, and possibly even three. For the first time the sense of imminent danger settled on him, though he took a deep breath, looking now to the elevators where he could see the last three Zeroes remaining in reserve were now being brought up to be spotted for launch. Soon the planes from the first strike wave should be returning, and Captain Okada would have to run with the wind for recovery. Behind him, he could see a few planes on the decks of
Hiryu and Soryu, but with the second wave already launched to attack Pearl Harbor, the fleet was in an interval of calm where flight deck operations were concerned.
That moment of breathless calm was now about to end.
* * *
Ensign Hamilton saw the carriers ahead, heard the chatter of the Buffalo pilots as they struggled to engage the first enemy fighters coming down from above. But there were not many, and he and his mates were able to close on the targets relatively quickly. He saw the torpedo planes descending to make their runs, and there he could see many more enemy fighters swarming low over the sea, and starting to climb. He looked ahead, saw the smoke from the lead carrier, and realized the Enterprise strike group must have already attacked. They had come on the scene like a column of cavalry reinforcements at a beleaguered post, and now he was going to give it to the enemy for what they had done to Lady Lex.
Hurst was in his ear… “Steady boys, let’s get that stray sheep first!” The ensign could see what his flight leader meant, for one of the enemy carriers had swung out of the formation and was now turning to resume station. A minute later they were right on top, and he tipped his wings over, following two other planes down after Hurst to begin his dive. For the first time in the war, he heard one of his mates shout out a battle cry on the radio as they dove, a word that was once imbued with a sinister hidden meaning… Geronimo!
Hamilton dove, still in love with his big heavy plane, and feeling the weight and solidity of the Dauntless SB2. It had a rugged feel that reassured, and yet it still handled as well in a dive as it might in level flight. The innovative diving brake at the trailing edge of the wing allowed the plane to make very good high angle dives, with great stability that led to very accurate bombing. It wasn’t as maneuverable as the quick turning Japanese Vals, but it could carry a better bomb load, take much more punishment, and was just as accurate in the hands of a decent pilot. Ensign Hamilton was pretty good, and today he was well motivated.
Tide Of Fortune (Kirov Series Book 20) Page 5
