by Peter Albano
“Very well,” Takii said. The pilot began his final inspection trailed by Mochitsura and Brent Ross and the crew chief. He pulled on a blade of the three-bladed Sumitomo variable-pitch, three-bladed propeller, assured himself the feathering counterweights of the pitch-change mechanism were locked, patted the cowl which housed the 985-horsepower Sakae 11, ran a hand under the cowling, checking for leaking oil or gasoline and found none. Then he unlocked an inspection panel on the side of the hood and looked for fuel line leaks, ducked under the fuselage-mounted auxiliary fuel tank and the empty crutches for the 1,764- pound torpedo and ran a hand over the slotted wing flaps looking for slack, checked the lock on the starboard folding wing tip, pushed hard on both wing-mounted auxiliary fuel tanks and then kicked both tires and grunted his approval. Finally, he patted the snarling tiger painted on the side of the cowling and turned to Mochitsura and Brent Ross. “Man the aircraft.”
Following the pilot and navigator, Brent stepped up on the short ladder held by a handler onto the wing and then, gripping the cockpit combing and finding the slotted step, he boosted himself up and lowered himself carefully into the gunner’s cockpit. After checking the canopy lock, he fastened his seat belt and tested his swiveling and tilting seat. It worked perfectly, its four ball bearings turning smoothly on its circular steel track. He plugged in his intercom and checked his oxygen bottle rack for the usual three bottles. They were all full. The signal pistol was in its slot and its cartridge rack full. Turning the seat to the rear, he pulled the 7.7-millimeter Type 96 machine gun from its well and snapped the locking lever off. Bracing his feet against the footrest and gripping the double pistol grips, he swung the perfectly balanced twenty-pound weapon from beam to beam and from the vertical to the horizontal. Like a feather, he said to himself.
He heard Takii’s voice in his earphones, “Load and lock and do not shoot off my tail.”
“Load and lock,” Brent said. Unlocking his seat belt and standing, he raised the machine gun's top cover and stared down into the feed mechanism. The armorers had already pulled the belt through the receiver, but, for safety's sake, a round was not seated in the firing chamber. Brent grunted with approval as he checked the alignment of the belt and the color coding of the projectiles' tips; alternate blue and red for armor piercing and anti-personnel with every fifth round painted yellow for tracer. With the snap of a loaded spring, he closed the cover and grabbed the cocking handle on the right side of the weapon, pulled back hard and released. The spring pulled the handle back and the bolt snapped into place with a metallic ring, seating a round in the firing chamber. He was not satisfied. Tilting his head to the side of the breech, he partially opened it and stared in, assuring himself there was a cartridge in the chamber. Releasing the handle, he snapped the weapon on safe, returned it to its well and locked it in place. Finally, he ran his hand down over the belt feeling each bullet until the belt disappeared into a slot in the floorboards above the 800- round ammunition tank. “Gunner ready, sir,” he said into his microphone, seating himself and locking his seat belt. He heard the navigator report ready and saw Takii circle a hand over his head. Brent pulled down his goggles.
The airframe jerked and vibrated as the Sakae came to life. Sputtering and banging, the fourteen cylinders fired erratically for several minutes until the warming cylinders finally settled down into the steady roar of heated oil and hot metal expanded to designed tolerances. Impatiently, Brent glanced at the bridge and found Fujita staring down. The young American sensed the old man disliked risking him on reconnaissance. But Brent had felt the frustration of all shipboard personnel who, with their skill and devotion, brought the carrier’s air groups within range of the enemy and then sat back, suffering the tortures of hell while the squadrons took off and vanished like broadsides of very long-range artillery. Only the air crews experienced the essence of carrier warfare — only the aircrews delivered Yonaga’s offensive power.
Suddenly, the Sakae roared as Takii made his final instrument check and idled down again. Brent felt a jerk as the tie downs were released and four handlers raced for their catwalks. Only the two men at the chocks remained while two others steadied the B5N’s wing tips. Nevertheless, Brent could see the director’s yellow flags still held over his head. The American fidgeted nervously. “Why didn’t they take off? Why the delay?” he muttered to himself. Leaning to the side and craning his neck he saw the reason; the steam from the bow jet was streaming off to the starboard bow. He punched the side of the cockpit. Gently, he felt the ship move to port and suddenly the ribbon of steam streaked directly down the center line of the flight deck.
Brent saw Lieutenant Takaii pump a closed fist skyward three times, the flags dropped, chocks were pulled and wing tips released. The last handlers raced for their catwalks and the pilot punched the engine to full throttle. Brent braced himself just as Takii released the brakes and the big plane lurched forward. Thirty-seven-hundred pounds heavier than the Zero yet designed for the same engine, the Nakajima lumbered down the deck, a boxcar compared to a feather. When Brent had watched the big plane take off from the bridge, he always marvelled when the ponderous five-ton aircraft finally clawed its way into the sky, especially when burdened with a torpedo. Now, seated in the bouncing cockpit, he began to pray. Just as they flashed by the island, Mochitsura turned, pointed skyward and laughed boisterously.
Immediately, the vibration of rubber on teakwood vanished and they were airborne. There were two thumps as the wheels retracted into their wells and Takii banked the big plane to the right. Pushing on the foot rests, Brent turned his seat to the rear and pulled the machine gun from its well. With a range of sixteen hundred miles, they were capable of remaining in the air for over twelve hours. It would be a long flight.
Flying at six thousand feet in a clear sky on a north-westerly heading, Brent could see Kyushu’s southern mountains to the north. Within an hour the island of Fukue Jima appeared below the right wing tip and the Korean island of Cheju Do off the left wing tip, both islands green emeralds in a sapphire sea, the chop reflecting the sun like chips of blue-white diamonds. With Mochitsura’s words, “Suggest course zero-one-zero,” still ringing in Brent’s earphone, Takii banked the big plane to the northeast toward the Korean Straits. In another hour they were over the island of Tsushima which was in the center of the Straits and Honshu was visible, sprawling big and purple to the northeast. Dozens of fishing boats were working the shallows and a half-dozen freighters could be seen entering and exiting the busy Shimonoseki Straits between Kyushu and Honshu. There was no sign of the convoy.
With the pine and oak clothed hills of Korea crouching dark and low on the horizon to the west like a lion in ambush, the B5N droned on over the southern reaches of the Sea of Japan. Scores of fishing boats continued to appear and an occasional freighter plied the water, but no convoy was to be found. They were nearing the end of their northeast run and Brent knew they would be forced to make their turn to the west and begin the run to North Korea soon.
Suddenly, Mochitsura stood holding his sextant, “shot the sun,” and returned to his charts. His squeaky voice came through the intercom, “We are crossing the thirty-eighth parallel, Lieutenant. Suggest course two-eight-zero.”
Brent knew both men despised “garlic eating” Koreans and were eager to reconnoiter the peninsula and “buzz” Pyongyang on the way back to Yonaga. Suddenly, he saw a slash of white in a patch of fog to the north. Then another. High-speed wakes. Raising his glasses, he brought a sleek gray hull into focus. Speaking into his headpiece, he was unable to contain his excitement, “Two zigzagging warships bearing zero-two-zero relative, range fifty kilometers.”
Both Takii and Mochitsura craned their skinny necks and Brent felt the plane bank toward the sighting. Mochitsura hunched over his radio, hands over his earphones. His puzzled voice came over the intercom, “I have a strange hum,” he said.
“Put it on,” Takii said.
Immediately, Brent’s earphones were squealing with und
ulating whines. Then a steady hum. “They have us on radar,” Brent said. “They’re ranging.”
“Fire control?”
“Can’t tell. A-band for sure.”
“Very well,” Takii said.
Two minutes later with the hum rising in intensity, a four-ship convoy became visible emerging from a fog bank into brilliant sunshine, steaming south, two destroyers leading two freighters. Brent heard Takii’s voice in his earphones, calling Yonaga. “Iceman, Iceman, this is Daimyo One. I have a four-ship convoy at latitude thirty-eight degrees, fifteen minutes, longitude one hundred thirty-two degrees, twenty minutes.” Brent heard Pierson’s voice acknowledge.
Making a wide turn to the north, the B5N quickly closed the range on the bow of the destroyer steaming as the left-hand lead vessel. Refocusing his glasses, Brent could see every detail of the Gearing class destroyer: the long graceful flush deck, four twin mount five-inch, thirty-eight-caliber bow-mounted cannons which appeared to be turning slowly in their gun houses and tracking Torn, glass glinting from the low streamlined bridge, exposed flying bridge crowded with men, foremast loaded with radar and radio antennas, twin widely spaced stacks, ten torpedo tubes, stern gun house which was trained to port, and weather decks and foretop covered with anti-aircraft machine guns sheltered by gun tubs. Crowding her decks were blue-clad crewmen wearing German-style coal-scuttle helmets. She was at General Quarters and with a sick feeling deep in his guts, the young gunner realized every gun was tracking the plane. However, he sighed with relief, realizing that only Takii could bring them into range of that forest of death-belching guns.
Takii’s voice shocked Brent so much, he almost dropped his binoculars. “Stand by for strafing run,” rasped through his earphones.
Disbelieving the words, Brent slapped his earphones with his palms. “Stand by for what?” he shouted into his mouthpiece, incredulously.
“For a strafing run! Are you deaf?”
“Banzai! Banzai!” came from Morisada Mochitsura who stood in his cockpit, waving an Otsu.
“Aye, aye, sir. Stand by for strafing run,” Brent said, standing and facing the rear. He pushed his goggles up to his forehead, pulled the machine gun to the top of its track, snapped the safety lever from “safe” to “fire” and wrapped his hands around the twin pistol grips. This could not be real. Could not be happening. He was caught in another nightmare. But a voice in his earphones told him he was wrong.
“Gunner, I will make my run on the left-hand lead DD from bow to stern and I will bank to our right off his stern, giving you a shot off our left side. Try to hit the flying bridge, Brent-san. That is their command center and, please, do not shoot off my tail.”
Brent knew the tactics were good, avoiding the full broadside approaches from either beam that would expose the aircraft to most of the ship’s armament. Still, an enormous number of five-inch and small caliber weapons — probably fifty caliber, twenty millimeter, and forty millimeter — would bear. He felt fear cut through him like a shark’s fin slashing through the surface of the sea. His lips and mouth were parched and his Adam’s apple became a boulder blocking his throat. His finger was trembling on the trigger, and his mind a riptide of confused thoughts. He had stood tall on the bridge of Yonaga many times when bombs and shells rained, torpedoes streaked. But Yonaga was a fortress of steel which had surrounded him, been under his feet, a sixteen-inch belt of it protecting the waterline. Tora was nothing but paper-thin aluminum, fabric, wood, wires, tubing, an under powered engine, two crazy old Orientals and a scared American. He spat into the slipstream as an acid taste fouled his mouth. With an effort, he squared his jaw and drew his lips back in a rictus of determination. If he was to die now, it would be facing the enemy. His face broke with a tight smile as he remembered Fujita’s quote of the Hagakure, “If you are to die, die facing the enemy, there is nothing else worth recording.”
Suddenly, the Sakae went to full military power and Takii dropped the port wing, split-essing the big torpedo bomber into a power dive. Thrown to the side of the cockpit and propelled upward by G forces, Brent came off the foot rests, harness straps tightening like steel bands. He felt heat on his cheeks as blood was forced upward by the violent maneuver and more acid soured his mouth.
Engine roaring, wind ripping through the open cockpits like a typhoon and with Mochitsura standing and waving his pistol over his head and screaming into the slipstream like an incubus, Tora plunged down on the destroyer. Standing as tall as his harness would allow, Brent swung the gun to the side and peered down and to the left. The Gearings bow seemed to be on fire, four five-inch guns firing over twenty rounds a minute each, flames leaping through puffs of brown smoke which whipped back over the bridge in long streamers and rolling clouds. Now the other destroyer was firing, all six guns of her three mounts bearing on the B5N. Brown puffs, blooming like ugly poisonous flowers, appeared silently and miraculously to the left, right, below and above. Brent had been under fire before, but he had never experienced anything as concentrated, as intense as the fire from five-inch, 38- caliber cannons. It was like automatic fire, the sky filling with drifting brown smears as if a curtain had been flung between the plane and the ship. Brent shuddered at the power, knowing one close burst would shred the B5N into aluminum foil.
Plummeting downward at over three hundred knots, the bomber narrowed the range quickly. Staring down, Brent felt he was plunging into the garden of hell as, abruptly, scores of machine guns opened fire. Lines of white tracers stretched out toward him, looking like clouds of burning pearls, at first coming quite slowly and then appearing to accelerate as they passed. Hundreds of small black puffs filled the sky as falling 40 millimeter shells self-destructed. Brent felt the dive flatten and the big plane banked slightly as Takii bored in for his head-on pass. The airframe bucked and Brent thought Takii had opened fire with his two 7.7- millimeter machine guns. But, instead, with horror, he saw holes appear in the starboard wing leaving rents through the aluminum, each surrounded by a halo of bright metal. Bits of aluminium and fragments of black metal spilled into the slipstream.
Suddenly, only a few hundred yards from the ship, the plane bucked and vibrated and Brent heard the reassuring yammer of Takii’s guns. And Mochitsura had unbuckled his seat belt, shed his parachute and was leaning far over the side, firing his Otsu and shouting “Banzai!” Brent swung his gun to the left and Takii banked slightly to his right and dropped almost to the wave tops, passing only a few yards from the ship and giving his gunner a clear shot. He also gave the destroyer’s machine gunners a clear shot.
With his gun pointed almost over the port wing tip and with the bridge in his sights, Brent squeezed the trigger. Feeling the weapon buck and vibrate and seeing his tracers shatter the windows of the bridge and bowl over the bridge crew like whirling dervishes, the horror and fear suddenly vanished replaced by feverish excitement and a warm wave of pleasure spread from his groin and brought back a liminal glimpse of Mayumi. Not more than twenty yards from the destroyer, flying at over three hundred knots and skimming the sea so low the propeller kicked up a white plume, the plane passed the destroyer in a wink. At flank speed, the destroyer’s stem sent white spray sluicing and frothing back, the power of her screws forcing her stern deep in the swirling white maelstrom of her wake. Brent got a glimpse; a kaleidoscope of helmeted men hunched behind weapons, flashes and smoke streaking from funnels and guns. He kept the machine gun on full trigger, timing his swing perfectly and pivoting the gun as the ship whipped past, raking her from bow to stern. Tracers blasted back, some 50-caliber and 20- millimeter machine guns on the foretop actually firing down on the plane, sending up huge splashes which sprayed Brent with a fine mist. More holes were punched in the fuselage and tail and a 50-caliber slug slammed through the bulkhead aft of Brent’s cockpit, shattering the dynamotor, small bits of steel ripping his flight suit in a dozen places. He grabbed his cheek as a flurry of hornets stung. His glove came away streaked with blood.
Just as Tora cleared the
stern, the two five-inch guns in the aft gun house fired, ten-foot orange tongues of flame leaping at the plane like the split tongue of a maddened dragon reaching for its victim. Now more than forty yards away, Brent actually felt the muzzle blast and the roar rocked the plane, stabbing pain through his eardrums to his brain like hot irons. But the guns could not depress low enough and the projectiles passed over the plane with a roar like a passing express train and the B5N rocked in the turbulence. Brent’s guts turned to water and for a moment he feared loss of sphincter control. Nevertheless, apparently unperturbed, Takii banked sharply away from the destroyer and the pursuing storm of tracers and more five-inch shells. Mochitsura, magazine empty, whipped out his sword and began waving it over his head in a circle, shouting “Banzai!” Brent released the gun, ducked and screamed into his headpiece. Reluctantly, the navigator seated himself and returned the sword to its scabbard. Brent dabbed at his cheek. A burst of splinters from the 50-caliber bullet which had hit the dynamotor had apparently ripped into his flight suit and cut his face. There was stinging and he could feel blood trickling and blown away by the wind.
Nothing serious. He could see and operate his weapon. Nothing else mattered. He shrugged his wounds away.
It was all over. They were out of range, pursued by shell bursts which were short and tracers which splashed far astern. Slowly, Takii banked the plane to the right and made a great circle around the compass and ahead of the convoy, gaining altitude and pointing the nose of the aircraft toward Korea. “Now for those garlic-eating Korean pirates,” Brent heard Mochitsura scream into the intercom.
