End of the Beginning

by Harry Turtledove

  But that wasn’t his headache, not really. He needed to run out of planes before he worried about ships. He looked around for more Zeros to shoot up.

  FUCHIDA HAD KNOWN IT WOULD BE BAD. The American air armada and the ferocious attack it got off against the Japanese strike force had warned him of that. But nothing in his blackest nightmares had warned him it would be as bad as this.

  American ships stretched as far as the eye could see, as far and farther. Fuchida knew—few men knew better—the resources the Japanese Empire had available. Raw fear almost made his hand shake on the torpedo plane’s stick. How were those slender resources going to stand against . . . this?

  A warrior’s iron steadied him. Japan had beaten the Americans before. One well-trained man who despised death was worth half a dozen of the ordinary kind. So his country’s doctrine insisted, and so it had seemed up till now.

  If, however, the enemy opposed you with a dozen ordinary men . . .

  He shook his head. He would not think like that. The Japanese strike force had plenty, even now, to blunt the force of this attack. He believed that. He had to believe it. The alternative was feeling that rising panic again.

  “Commander-san?” The voice on the intercom belonged to his bombardier.

  “Hai?” Fuchida did his best to suppress what was going on inside him, but he could still hear the tension even in that one-word response.

  “Sir, I was just thinking—it’s a shame we can’t carry two torpedoes,” the rating said.

  Fuchida broke up, right there in the cockpit. He didn’t think he’d ever done that before. Laughter washed away the last of the fear. “Domo arigato, Imura-san,” he said. “I needed that. We’ll just have to do what we can with what we’ve got.”

  From the rear cockpit, Mizuki the radioman said, “That’s what the man with the little dick said when he went to bed with the geisha.”

  Both Fuchida and Imura snorted. Fuchida’s confidence, having returned, now soared. How could his country lose when it had men who cracked silly jokes in the face of death?

  The Americans seemed intent on showing him exactly how Japan could lose. The destroyers and cruisers protecting the U.S. carriers—and were those battleships out ahead of them, too?—threw up a curtain of flak the likes of which he’d never seen before. That didn’t worry him so much, though. The antiaircraft fire would knock down a few planes, but only a few. You went ahead and did your job and didn’t worry about it. If you and an enemy shell happened to wind up in the same place at the same time, that was hard luck, and you couldn’t do a thing about it.

  But the Yankees, despite having dispatched such an enormous strike force against Akagi and Shokaku, also kept a formidable combat air patrol above their own fleet. Wildcats and the new fighters—whose name Fuchida did not know—tore into the attacking Japanese planes.

  Mizuki’s rear-facing machine guns chattered. “Scared the baka yaro off!” the radioman said triumphantly. And he must have, for no machine-gun bullets tore into the torpedo plane. Fuchida allowed himself the luxury of a sigh of relief. He hadn’t even seen the enemy plane Mizuki fired at.

  Two burning Zeros plummeted into the Pacific. Part of the problem was that the new American fighters looked a lot like bigger versions of the Wildcats with which they mingled. They were plainly descended from the planes with which Fuchida and the Japanese were familiar. But any careless Zero pilot who tried to take them on as if they were Wildcats discovered he’d made a mistake—usually his last one. Zeros could outfly the older American fighters, but not these, not these.

  A piece of shrapnel clanged against Fuchida’s wing. He glanced to the left. He didn’t see fire. That deserved—and got—another sigh of relief from him. Then the curtain of antiaircraft fire eased. He’d brought his Nakajima past the enemy’s screening ships. A carrier loomed ahead.

  It threw out its own flak, of course. Tracers stabbed toward him. He ignored them. A torpedo run had to be straight. “Ready?” he called to the bombardier.

  “Ready, sir,” Imura answered. “A hair to the right, sir, if you please. I think she’ll try to dodge to port when we launch.”

  Fuchida made the adjustment. The torpedo splashed into the sea. The Nakajima suddenly grew lighter, faster, and more maneuverable. Now Fuchida wished he were only a spectator, and a man who had to get out of there alive if he could. But, as the officer in overall command of the Japanese air strike, he had to linger and do what he could to direct his countrymen against the enemy. And lingering, in this neighborhood, was asking not to grow old.

  “Diving against a Yankee carrier. May the Emperor live ten thousand years!” The radio call made Fuchida look around to see if he could find the attacking Aichi. But the Americans were spread out over so much ocean, he couldn’t spot it. It might have been a good many kilometers away. He didn’t see any sudden great plume of smoke rising from a stricken ship, either. Too bad, he thought.

  THE PILOT IN THIS WILDCAT flew his plane as aggressively as if it were one of the new American fighters. Saburo Shindo didn’t mind that at all. Aggressiveness was a great virtue in a fighter pilot—when he had the aircraft that could make the most of it. This fellow didn’t, not against a Zero. Shindo got on his tail and stayed there, pumping bullets into the enemy plane till at last it caught fire and went down.

  Shooting down enemy fighters was the reason he’d accompanied the Japanese dive bombers and torpedo planes against the Americans. Doing his job should have given him more satisfaction, especially since he was good at it. Today, he felt like a man snatching up whatever he could as he escaped a burning house. He might hang on to a few trinkets, a few toys, but the house would still be gone forever.

  Two American fighters knocked down a Nakajima just as it started its run against an enemy ship. Shindo was too far away to help or to draw off the American planes. He could only watch helplessly.

  That summed up how he felt about too much of this fight. The Japanese strike force from Akagi and Shokaku that had done such splendid work around Hawaii was getting hacked to bits before his eyes. One after another, planes tumbled into the sea. Where would more highly trained, highly experienced pilots and aircrew come from after these men were gone? He had no idea.

  He also had no idea whether he would live long enough for the question to be anything but academic to him. The Americans were hitting the strike force with everything they had, and they had more than he’d ever imagined. He felt like a man who’d stuck his hand into a meat grinder.

  Being an experienced fighter pilot had drilled the habit of checking six into him. That let him spot an onrushing American plane in time to pull up and roll away. The enemy zoomed by without being able to open fire on him. Had this fellow flown a Wildcat, Shindo would have gone after him in turn. But the Yankee had one of the new fighters. Chasing them in a Zero was like trying to fly up to the sun. You could try, sure, but it wouldn’t do you any good.

  “Banzai!” The victory shout made Shindo look around. He hadn’t heard it nearly often enough in this fight. He felt like cheering himself when he saw a U.S. carrier on fire and listing to starboard. Something had gone right. About time, too.

  But how many carriers formed the core of this fleet? However many there were, they far outnumbered the half dozen Japan had used to open the war against the USA. His own country had been prepared to lose a third of that force if it meant a successful attack. Would the Americans be any less ruthless in their counterattack? It seemed unlikely.

  “Shindo-san! Are you still there? This is Fuchida.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m still here. What are your orders?”

  “We’ve done everything we can here, I think—and the Americans will have done what they can do to us,” Fuchida answered; Shindo wished he’d left out the second part of the observation, no matter how true it was. The strike-force commander went on, “Time to return to our ships.”

  “Yes, sir,” Shindo repeated stolidly. Whether the Japanese carriers were still there was anybody’s guess.
Shindo knew as much, and no doubt Fuchida did, too. That didn’t mean the senior officer was wrong. They had to try.

  ALL OFAKAGI’S antiaircraft guns seemed to be going off at once, the heavy and the light together. The din on the bridge was indescribable. Genda and the other officers had to shout to make themselves heard. Admiral Kaku had the conn himself. Genda could do things the skipper couldn’t. His strategic grasp reached from Hawaii into the Indian Ocean, while he doubted Tomeo Kaku cared a sen’s worth about anything that happened beyond the ends of Akagi’s flight deck. But Kaku handled the carrier the way a fighter ace flew his Zero: as if the craft were an extension of his own body. Genda admired his skill and knew he would never be able to match it himself, not if he lived to be ninety.

  Machine guns blazing, an American fighter raked the flight deck from no higher than the top of the island. Despite the bellowing antiaircraft guns, the enemy escaped. “That is a brave man,” Genda said.

  “Zakennayo!” somebody else replied. “How many of our brave men did he just shoot up?” Genda had no answer for that.

  “Helldivers!” someone screeched. Genda involuntarily looked up, though steel armor kept him from seeing the sky. But then, he didn’t need to see to imagine dive bombers racing down towards Akagi. He was one of the men who’d brought the technique to Japan, and he’d brought it from the USA.

  Rear Admiral Kaku swung the wheel hard to port, then even harder to starboard. Muscles in his shoulders bunched as he tried to force the carrier to respond to his will at once. Bombs splashed into the sea all around Akagi, but the first few missed. So far, so good, Genda thought.

  Then another shout pierced the racket on the bridge: “Torpedo! Torpedo to port!”

  This isn’t fair was what went through Genda’s mind. Too much happening all at once. He and his countrymen had kept the Americans off-balance through the first two fights in Hawaiian waters. Now the shoe was on the other foot, and much less comfortable this way.

  Cursing horribly, Kaku yanked the wheel to port again, intending to turn into the torpedo’s path. But either that took him into the path of the dive bombers overhead or the Yankee pilots simply guessed with him and outguessed him. Three bombs hit Akagi: near the stern, amidships, and right at the bow.

  The next thing Genda knew, he was on the floor. One of his ankles screamed at him when he tried to put weight on it. He hauled himself upright anyhow—duty shouted louder than pain. Several men were down and wouldn’t get up again; the steel beneath his feet had twisted like cardboard and was awash in blood.

  Kaku still wrestled with the wheel. He went on cursing for a few seconds, then said something worse than the blackest of oaths: “She doesn’t answer her helm.” If Akagi couldn’t steer . . . Kaku turned to the speaking tube to shout down to the engine room. A ship could be guided, crudely, by her engines. It wasn’t much, but it was what they had.

  The torpedo hit then, as near amidships as made no difference.

  Akagi had taken a torpedo, from a plane off the Lexington, during the first strike against Hawaii. That fish, like a lot of the ones the Americans used in the first months of the war, proved a dud. This one—wasn’t.

  Genda found himself on the floor again. Getting up a second time hurt even more than it had the first. All the same, he did it. Once he was on his feet, he wondered why he’d bothered. For a moment, he also wondered if he could stand straight. Then he realized the problem wasn’t his but Akagi’s: the ship had a list, one that worsened every minute.

  Flames were shooting up through holes in the flight deck, too. Men with hoses fought them, but they weren’t having much luck.

  “My apologies, Commander,” Admiral Kaku said, as if he’d accidentally bumped into Genda.

  “Sir, we’ve got to abandon ship,” Genda blurted. As if to underscore his words, an explosion shook Akagi. Maybe that was aviation gasoline going up, or maybe it was the carrier’s munitions starting to cook off.

  Calmly, Tomeo Kaku nodded. “You are correct, of course. I will give the order.” He spoke into the intercom, which by some miracle still functioned: “All hands, prepare to abandon ship! This is the captain speaking! All hands, prepare to abandon ship!” Bowing politely to Genda, he went on, “You should head for the flight deck now, Commander. I see you have an injured leg. Give yourself all the time you need.”

  “Yes, sir.” Genda took one lurching stride towards a doorway twisted open. “What about you, sir?”

  “What about me?” Kaku smiled a sweet, sad smile. “This is my ship, Commander.”

  Genda couldn’t very well misunderstand that. He did protest: “Sir, you should save yourself so you can go on serving the Emperor. Japan needs all the capable senior officers she can find.”

  “I know you younger men feel that way,” Kaku said, smiling still. “If that course seems right and proper to you, then you should follow it. As for me . . . I have made mistakes here. If I had not made mistakes, I would not be losing Akagi. The least I can do is atone to his Majesty for my failure. Sayonara, Commander.”

  After that, nothing would change his mind. Recognizing as much, Genda bowed and limped away. The last he saw of Rear Admiral Kaku, Akagi’s skipper was fastening his belt to a chair so he would be sure to go down with his ship.

  When Genda got to the flight deck, he saw more flames leaping up from the bomb hit at the stern. “Come on, boys, over the side!” a petty officer shouted, sounding absurdly cheerful. “Swim away from the hull as fast as you can, mind, so the undertow doesn’t drag you down when she sinks!”

  That was good, sensible advice. And the ship’s growing list made going over the side easier. Genda cursed when he hit the water even so. That ankle was definitely sprained, and might be broken. He rolled over onto his back and pulled away from Akagi with his arms.

  American fighters strafed sailors in the sea. Bullets kicked up splashes only a few meters from him. He swam past a dead man leaking scarlet into the Pacific. The blood would draw sharks, but sharks, at the moment, were the least of his worries.

  Their antiaircraft guns still blazing, destroyers circled the doomed Akagi to pick up survivors. Some men clambered up cargo nets hung from the sides. With his bad leg, Genda couldn’t climb. He clung to a line till sailors aboard the Yukikaze could haul him up to the deck.

  “Domo arigato,” he said. When he tried to stand on that bad leg, it wouldn’t bear his weight. He had to sit and watch Akagi slide beneath the waves. His face crumpled. Tears ran down his cheeks. Since he was already soaking wet, only he noticed. He looked away from the carrier that had fought so long and so well, and noticed he was far from the only man off Akagi doing the same. She deserved mourning—and so did Admiral Kaku, who’d never left the bridge.

  AN EXULTANT VOICE HOWLED in Joe Crosetti’s earphones: “Scratch one flattop!” Yells and cheers and curses rang out as the enemy carrier sank.

  “How do you like that, you Jap bastards?” Joe shouted. He looked around for more Zeros, and didn’t see any. Some might still be airborne, but not close to him. He’d made a few runs at sailors bobbing in the sea, but decided he could hurt the enemy worse by shooting up his ships. That felt like a real duel, because the Japs shot back for all they were worth. Watching sailors scatter was a hell of a lot of fun.

  After he’d made a couple of passes, an authoritative voice sounded off: “Attention, Hellcat pilots! We’ve got a formation of bandits coming up from the south at about 15,000 feet. Time to give them a friendly American welcome, hey?”

  Joe needed a few seconds to figure out where south was. He’d got all turned around in his strafing runs. When he did, he started to climb. His new wingman still clung like a burr, which was what a wingman was supposed to do. He wondered who the guy was, and from which carrier he’d taken off.

  There were the bandits, buzzing along as if they didn’t have a care in the world. If they didn’t, they were about to. Joe had trouble recognizing ships, but planes he knew. He clicked through a mental card file. Bombers. Twin
-engined. Streamlined—they looked like flying cigars. Bettys, he thought. They could carry bombs or torpedoes. The point of the exercise, as far as he was concerned, was to make sure they didn’t get the chance to use whatever they were carrying.

  They’d seen the American fighters, and started taking evasive action. That was pretty funny. They weren’t slow and they weren’t completely ungraceful, but no bomber had a prayer of outdodging a fighter that wanted to come after it. The Bettys also started shooting. They carried several machine guns in blisters on the fuselage—almost impossible to aim well—and a 20mm cannon in a clumsy turret at the rear of the plane.

  When Joe got on the tail of one, the Jap in that rear turret started banging away at him. The cannon didn’t shoot very fast. There’d be a flash and a puff of smoke as the shell burst, then a little while later another one. Joe fired a burst as he swung the Hellcat’s nose across that turret. The tail gunner stopped shooting: wounded or dead.

  With that annoyance gone, Joe sawed the Hellcat’s nose across the Betty’s left wing root and squeezed off another burst. Sure as hell, the bomber caught fire. Intelligence said Bettys carried a lot of fuel to give them long range, and that they lacked armor and self-sealing tanks. It sure looked as if Intelligence knew what it was talking about.

  He went after another bomber and shot it down just the same way. The poor bastard in the rear turret never had a chance—and once he was gone, none of the weapons the Betty carried could damage a tough bird like a Hellcat except by luck. Joe knew a moment’s pity for the fliers trapped in their burning planes, but only a moment’s. They would have bombed his carrier if they’d got the chance. And they would have yelled, “Banzai!” while they did it, too. Screw ’em.

  Still . . . Three miles was a hell of a long way to fall when you were on fire.

  Other U.S. pilots found different ways of attacking the Bettys. Some flew straight at the bombers and shot up their cockpits. Others climbed past them and dove like falcons stooping on doves. The unescorted Bettys were slaughtered. Watching, taking part, Joe again felt tempted to pity, but again not for long. This was the enemy. The only reason they weren’t doing the same thing to him was that they couldn’t. They surely wanted to.