Over the Hill: a novel of the Pacific War (Crash Dive Book 6)

by Craig DiLouie

  Charlie stopped ranting. Braddock listened to his ragged breathing.

  “Home,” the man sighed.

  “She’s waiting for you, sir,” the chief said. “All you have to do is get there.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  THE BOMBING OF KURE

  As days became weeks patrolling the Inland Sea, Braddock and Harrison, like the clannish Scouts, kept to themselves. Charlie slowly clawed his way back to life while no doubt fighting boredom and frustration as he rested and healed. Braddock stuck to the enlisted quarters, not minding his idleness one bit.

  When he’d come aboard, the chiefs had been wary around him, worried he might try to stick his nose in their departments, but Braddock kept his nose to himself. The most important lesson the Navy ever taught him was to never volunteer for work.

  Instead, he often sat on his bunk and played cards with his captain. They whiled away the hours in their games, old grudges and rank buried in the past.

  Today, the game was Go Fish.

  “Tens?” Braddock said.

  Charlie handed over the catch.

  Braddock inspected his hand. “Aces?”

  “Go fish,” said his captain.

  Tension had risen throughout the boat. The Alamo Scouts paced like caged wolves, eager to be unleashed. In two days, heavy bombers would again fill the skies over Kyushu, and the Scouts would raid the Miyazaki PW branch camp.

  Cotten figured his jungle fighters could take out the guards—a bunch of farm boys with no real combat experience—and liberate the prisoners at both camps. The problem was getting them all off the island.

  Even if the submarines cruised on the surface with the prisoners cramming the decks, they couldn’t all fit. And even if they could fit, they couldn’t deliver them to the boats before the enemy responded.

  Japan’s high command had predicted Kyushu was the likely first target for invasion. Military units packed the island. Tanks, infantry, special units. The Japanese would mow them down on the shoreline.

  The best option, it seemed, was to leave Rusty and Percy at the base camp.

  Harrison said he understood, but he clearly didn’t accept it. Braddock was honoring his promise to bring his captain home, but Harrison wasn’t here, not really. A part of him was still in Japan, and he couldn’t actually go home until the last of his crew was free.

  But that wasn’t how war worked. It was chaotic and uncaring. Harrison would be going home without his men.

  “Kings,” Charlie said.

  Braddock passed one over.

  “Kings.”

  Another card.

  “Kings.”

  Taking his last catch, Charlie laid down his book of four kings. “Twos.”

  The man played cards the same way he went after ships, a bulldog chomping on the seat of your drawers and never letting go. Venting his frustration on the cards. The man should have been in a hospital, not sailing around Japan.

  “Go fish, sir.”

  Captain McMahon entered and filled the small space with his bulk. “I’ve got news.”

  Grateful for the break, Braddock slapped his cards on the blanket. “What’s the word, sir?”

  “Come to the wardroom. Both of you.”

  Cotten was waiting there, glowering with folded arms. Whatever was happening, it didn’t look good. Charlie and Braddock grabbed chairs.

  McMahon remained standing, bouncing on his heels as if bursting with his news. “Something big has happened. Third Fleet found what was left of the Jap navy at Kure. Halsey sent in two thousand planes. It was a total wipeout.”

  The Americans had destroyed an aircraft carrier, three battleships, five cruisers, and other ships, in addition to more than 300 planes.

  “Why?” Braddock wondered.

  McMahon looked down at him. “Why not?”

  “The Jap navy wasn’t a threat anymore. They were out of gas.”

  “By destroying their fleet, they can’t use it as a bargaining chip. We want their unconditional surrender. Otherwise, they get complete destruction.”

  Charlie nodded with satisfaction. “Every bit helps.”

  McMahon said, “Again, why not?”

  “Tell them the rest, Captain,” Cotten said. “About scrubbing the mission.”

  “Now hang on,” McMahon growled. “It’s just postponed a bit. We received orders for a priority mission. We’re to sail north toward Kure and hold station.”

  “That’s it?” Braddock said. “What are we doing, looking for mines?”

  The captain of the Swordfish answered with a jubilant grin. “We’re going to observe and report on an attack that’s apparently going to make the destruction of the Jap fleet look like child’s play.”

  “What’s the target?” Charlie said.

  If the rescue of his men were to be delayed, he would of course want the wait to be worth it.

  “Hiroshima, a coastal city.”

  “Never heard of it,” said Braddock.

  “The Jap Second Army is headquartered there, along with the Chugoku Regional Army and the Army Marines. It’s a major port, embarkation point for troops, and depot for war materiel. There’s war industry there, factories cranking out bombs, rifles, boats. Otherwise, I don’t know why it’s been targeted for this special attack. So far as I know, it hasn’t even been hit by our bombers.”

  “We go and observe this attack,” Charlie said. “Then we continue our mission and break our men out of the camp. Do I have that right?”

  “That’s the idea,” McMahon told him.

  “Good.”

  Braddock wondered if they’d ever get there. Behind the scenes, colossal forces were at work. Hundreds of ships, thousands of planes, millions of servicemen, and an endless supply of ordnance had ravaged Japan. This vast war machine was now aimed at the empire’s jugular. Operation Downfall had begun, and it promised to be bloody.

  Whatever the value of rescuing PWs, it wasn’t the priority. The priority was crushing Japan’s will to fight. Ending the war so all the PWs could come home.

  In the end, Braddock agreed with Charlie. Whatever was going to happen at Hiroshima, it better be worth it.

  Hiroshima, Japan, population 350,000.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  HIROSHIMA

  Captain McMahon scowled in the tense and crowded conning tower. This simple mission—surface, observe, report—would be one of the most dangerous his crew had ever attempted.

  In just a few minutes, the Swordfish would surface in Hiroshima Bay exposed in the morning sun’s full light. While the American Navy operated with virtual impunity off Japan’s eastern coast, those ships had air cover.

  Here, the Swordfish was a lone sub with its ass hanging in the wind, almost begging to be sunk by interceptors and coastal guns. Islands, all of them likely fortified against invasion, surrounded Hiroshima Bay.

  “It’s a little late in the game to be taking a big risk,” the captain muttered to himself, though everybody heard it.

  They were almost home. Nobody wanted to be the last casualty in the war. Standing near the TDC, Braddock couldn’t agree more. Surviving one sinking boat was enough to last him a lifetime.

  The mission itself still made no sense to him. They were supposed to observe an attack. Heavy bombers had already burned more than sixty-five cities to the ground. What could they do to Hiroshima that they hadn’t done to other cities in spades?

  It promised to be spectacular, but promises meant nothing to Braddock.

  And wasn’t that just the Navy? You sign up to fix boat machines, and the next thing you know, you’re on Saipan with hundreds of screaming Japanese chasing you with bayonets. You put together a mission to rescue Americans languishing in prison, and next thing, you’re cruising in broad daylight off the coast of a country that uses suicide pilots to attack ships.

  Thirty minutes, from 0800 to 0830. That’s what the Navy required, and that’s what McMahon would give them. No more, no less.

  At the plotting tabl
e, Harrison inspected their position. If he was scared, he didn’t show it.

  “Where are we now, sir?” Braddock asked him.

  “Close. We’re cruising between the islands of Itsukushima and Onasabi.” Charlie checked the clock. “We’ll be on station about ten minutes ahead of schedule.”

  The man was smiling. He seemed downright happy to be back at work.

  “Up scope.” Captain McMahon settled in behind the periscope, circling.

  “What do you see, Captain?” Charlie said, no doubt missing the days when he stood behind the periscope and was the submarine’s eyes.

  “It’s a beautiful day up there. Down scope.”

  “Do you mind if I join you topside for the observation?”

  “Be my guest, Commander.”

  “Permission to go as well, Captain?” Braddock said.

  “Why not? Just note if we’re diving, we’re doing it fast.” The captain sighed, resigned to his duty. “All right then. Rig to surface, Exec.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper.” The executive officer keyed the 1MC and said, “All compartments, rig to surface.” He hung up the 1MC. “Maneuvering, stand by to switch from motors to diesels. On surfacing, answer bells on all main engines.”

  The yeoman handed out pairs of black sunglasses to anybody going up.

  “What’s this for, Yeo?” Braddock said.

  “Beats me, Chief,” the kid said. “I just do what I’m told.”

  Still smiling, Charlie slipped his glasses into his breast pocket.

  “What are you thinking, sir?” Braddock asked him.

  “That we’re in for some serious fireworks.”

  “You think it’s some kind of super weapon?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said. “Whatever it is, if it’s powerful enough to convince the Japs to surrender, I’ll be happy.”

  “Ready to surface in every respect, Captain,” the exec reported.

  “Very well.” McMahon checked his watch. “It’s showtime. Surface!”

  “Control, blow all main ballast. Blow negative.”

  High-pressure air shot into the ballast tanks, pushing out the water and buoying the boat, which ascended under the planesmen’s control.

  “Deck gun crew, stand by,” said the captain. “We’ll shout if we need you.”

  The Swordfish broke the surface and settled on the water. The lookouts mounted to the bridge and called down the all clear. With binoculars slung around their necks, the captain and some of his petty officers went up next. All four engines roared to life, ready to give the boat full propulsion if she needed it.

  Braddock pocketed his sunglasses and followed Charlie into the warm sunshine topside. There, he found the Swordfish cruising in a northwesterly direction just north of Onasabi Island and five miles from the port of Hiroshima.

  For the first time, he saw the country he’d been fighting against for nearly four years.

  Lush green hills rose from Hiroshima Bay’s placid waters. Fishing boats crowded the extensive waterfront piers. The Ota River and its tributaries flowed through the city and emptied into the inland sea, separating sections of the city linked by bridges. Wood and paper houses, shops, and timber workshops, all with curiously curved tile roofs, crammed the available land space. A few pagodas and grand administrative buildings towered over the rest. Banging out war goods, big industrial plants ringed the city. Beyond, purple mountains lay stacked in rows along the northern horizon, under a clear blue sky.

  Alien and beautiful, like something from a fairy tale.

  On the cigarette deck, a sailor fiddled with a film camera, trying to mount it on a tripod. If they had to make an emergency dive, Braddock hoped the kid would be able to get down the ladder quickly enough.

  “Bridge, Conn,” the bridge speaker blared. “Pearl confirmed the package is en route from Tinian and will arrive on schedule.”

  “Very well.” McMahon ranged with his binoculars. “If the Japs see us, they aren’t doing anything about it yet.”

  “They see us.” Charlie swept the city with his own binoculars. “Probably saving their frying pans for bigger fish.”

  The captain grunted. “I’ll count my blessings once we’re out of these waters.”

  “Planes, far, approaching, bearing two-five-oh,” a lookout cried.

  McMahon wheeled. “Got ’em. Three B-29s. That’s our boys.” He glanced at the sailor behind the film camera. “Start rolling.”

  The heavy bombers had flown over Shikoku at 30,000 feet, too high for Japanese interceptors and AA fire.

  The sailor said, “What am I shooting, sir?”

  “The city.”

  “What part of the city?”

  “I don’t know. The city. Get as much of it in frame as you can.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Braddock peered at Hiroshima, which was bustling in its morning routines without any signs of alarm. “They must have picked up the planes on radar. Why don’t we hear air raid sirens?”

  “Three planes,” Russo, the burly quartermaster, answered him. “They probably figure it’s no threat.”

  “If what we’ve been told is true, these three planes are about to kill a lot of civilians. Nobody’s in the bomb shelters.”

  “They were warned,” said Russo.

  “He’s right,” McMahon said. “Our planes dropped leaflets. We warned them to get out of the cities. We warned them to give up.”

  “That don’t make it right,” Braddock growled.

  “What do you think we’ve been doing the last four years, Chief?” Russo shook his head. “It’s all necessary evil. Just a matter of scale, that’s all.”

  “The scale never involved killing kids,” Braddock said.

  “It includes their cities, where they build bombs. The Japs should have taken their kids to the countryside by now. If they didn’t, well, that’s on them.”

  Macabre math. On Saipan, Smokey blew himself up with a grenade and saved three men, who killed twenty men and blew up a gun, thereby saving hundreds. At Hiroshima, if a super weapon killed thousands of people, it might end the war faster, which would save hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who might otherwise die during a land invasion. None of it had to balance. The only important thing was it all added in your favor.

  Braddock shut up. It was easy to judge, but he didn’t see any alternative. The war had to end. Any means to that end was, as the quartermaster had put it neatly enough for a poem, a necessary evil.

  “Here they come,” Captain McMahon called out. “Sunglasses on, binoculars away. We’ll have plenty of time to argue philosophy later.”

  The world dimmed as Braddock put his on. “Crazy thought, sir. Are we safe here?”

  “I guess we’re about to find that out, Chief.”

  When he’d heard about the attack, Braddock had naturally thought the Navy was overblowing how big this new weapon was going to be. Now he wondered if they were all underestimating it.

  Russo frowned. “You think too much.”

  “Only in the Navy could thinking be called overthinking,” Braddock shot back.

  “Shut your traps, the two of you,” the captain said.

  Charlie slid his hands around the bridge coaming and gripped. His body clenched with tension, Braddock did the same.

  The planes flew over the city. Nothing happened. They waited.

  The world exploded in a blinding white flash that seared Braddock’s eyes.

  Moments later, the loudest, most terrifying explosion he’d ever heard flattened his eardrums.

  He ducked and cried out, half-blind, his ears filled with a rumbling earthquake. His heart hammered in terror. The fillings in his teeth tingled. The air tasted like lead. He tore the sunglasses off in panic and flung them to the deck, mindlessly shouting every obscenity he knew into the roar.

  The world returned, obscured by the explosion’s after-image, a purple splotch.

  The bomb had detonated at a height of about two thousand feet, transforming into
a colossal fireball. The incredible downward force had vaporized a square mile and buckled the earth all the way to the waterfront, flattening buildings and kicking up a tidal wave of dust. A hot wind and swell raced from the shore to slam into the Swordfish with the force of a close-aboard depth charge.

  “Jesus!” the kid behind the film camera screamed as the rushing wall of hot air struck them all. “Did you see that? Did you see it?”

  The flaring bluish-white light turned yellow then orange against the scarred atmosphere. Enraged clouds of dust and smoke seethed as the shockwave pulsed. A great reddish-orange ball rose over the city now, its edges purplish gray like a festering wound, its heart glowing impossibly bright.

  The smoldering cloud expanded as convection currents sucked tons of dirt into it. Flames raged outside the blast radius, quickly growing into a firestorm. More loud rumblings boomed as buildings crumbled. At the center of the disintegrating city, the cloud boiled and rose like a mushroom head, bright as a second sun over the Land of the Rising Sun, pulsing orange and red as fires raged and died at its roots.

  The super weapon had destroyed Hiroshima as sure as the hand of God had obliterated Sodom. The explosion had vaporized the city center and left the rest ravaged by collapse and firestorms that surged up the sides of the nearby mountains. And above it all, the awful mushroom cloud boiled into the sky, rising on its plume 45,000 feet into the air and casting a dark pall over the once-thriving city that had become a graveyard.

  Braddock gasped at the horror of it. He’d seen men die. He’d killed or helped kill plenty of them. He knew the bombing raids had razed huge swathes of Japan’s great industrial centers. But this. This was a whole new ballgame, almost too much to fathom. A single bomb had wiped Hiroshima off the map. He’d seen the horrors of war, but humans just didn’t do this to each other.

  Until now.

  Gray particles flurried across the bay. Tons of earth, buildings, and people destroyed and sucked up into the atmosphere, returning to the earth as ash.

  Beside him, Charlie fell wide-eyed to his knees, still trying to process what he’d witnessed. This wasn’t war anymore. It was brutal extermination. Annihilation of an enemy no longer regarded as human. No longer a heroic duel of men and nations, a contest involving honor and destiny. This was death and destruction on an unfathomable scale. The bomb had robbed war of all its meaning, delivering victory as an end justifying any means necessary.