“Sir, why don’t you go home?”
It was Dianne.
He smiled and shook his head.
“Once we get a monitor back on their main naval frequencies, then I’ll take a break. By the way, that was a great idea, using Hungarian. Unique language with no connections to Latin, Slavic, or Germanic-based roots. Not a chance in hell the Japs have someone who can speak it with their fleet.”
She smiled.
“My older sister married a bohunk--I mean Hungarian--guy back in New York. They met at NYU. My folks threw a fit at first. He wasn’t Princeton or Yale like they had hoped for, but at least he’s Catholic, so they got used to it. Great guy; they got two kids now. So it just sort of came to me. He taught her how to say some rather dirty words and no one understood a word of it.”
“Well, it was brilliant, and I think they got the message.”
When she had cooked up the idea, he and Collingwood had first laughed it off. Where the hell were they going to find a native-speaking Hungarian in this chaos, until one of the sailors standing nearby overheard them and announced he had a buddy who was a cook who grew up there. That cook was now sitting in a corner of the hangar, obviously overwhelmed by all the brass wandering around, and by the way he was being treated with deference. Once someone stateside who could speak the language was dragged in and put on the radio on the other end, they’d at least have some semblance of coding that could throw the Japanese off for a little while. Hopefully, someone on board the carriers knew the language as well and could listen in.
She helped him light another cigarette. Without the hook it was difficult to get a match lit. He winced slightly when out of old habit he raised his left arm to take the cigarette out of his mouth, having mastered the art both with his rubberized hand and with the hook.
The damn thing was starting to hurt again, but the pain was different, deeper, and he wondered if it meant infection was beginning to set in.
He didn’t have time for that now, and he went back into the hangar, warm in the afternoon sun, the air thick with the smell of burning oil, settled back down on the blanket spread out for him on the floor, and dozed off.
Mess hall now serving as ready room, Hickam Army Air Force Base 13:55hrs local time
Lieutenant Dave Dellacroce found it difficult to swallow. He thought of the shot of whiskey that a medic had given him after landing this morning, wishing he had another, in fact the whole damn bottle. Instead all they had given him now was a warm bottle of Coke. He put it down, eyes fixed on the officer approaching them.
Along with thirteen other pilots he sat at a mess table while the briefing officer, an army colonel, came over to the corner where the pilots waited. Several were actually asleep, sprawled out on the floor or on tables. The call came for attention and their comrades roused them.
Dave caught Struble’s eye. Both knew that in a few more seconds they’d find out if there was any chance left of living through this day or not.
“You men get something to eat?” the colonel asked, trying to sound friendly.
Several nodded; no one spoke. Dave felt he was crazy. Eat now? If he didn’t puke it up immediately, it would definitely come up once he was into the air.
The colonel hesitated and then opened up his briefcase and pulled out what was nothing more than a hand-drawn map and put it on the table.
“Jesus Christ, not the carriers again,” one of the Dauntless pilots whispered. “What about the battleship?”
“The Navy says they are moving a sub into position now to finish off the battleship. It’s a sitting duck.”
“And if the sub misses or gets nailed?” another pilot asked. “Hell, he could get away after dark.”
“Not far, and they think they’ll have enough of the channel cleared to start getting destroyers out again by nighttime as well. That battleship is dead meat. But the carriers aren’t. One of your comrades located what we think is the main fleet.”
“Stupid son of a bitch,” someone whispered.
“We’re dead meat,” Brandon Welldon, the pilot of B-17 Gloria Ann, sighed.
The colonel looked at him, not responding, almost embarrassed.
“We bombed their battleship this morning with three bombers, the target moving at ten to twelve knots, unable to maneuver, and got one, maybe two hits, sir,” Brandon said. “You’re asking us to go after a well-protected carrier, doing thirty knots? Sir, frankly that is insanity, and when it is over this island won’t have a single plane left.”
There was a muttered chorus of agreement, and the colonel stiffened.
“Those are the orders, gentlemen. Wheels up at 14:30 hours. Good luck to you.”
The colonel turned and walked away.
“Yeah, good luck to us,” Welldon snapped, “bullshit. We’ll see you in hell, sir.”
The colonel pivoted on his heels and the other pilots were on their feet moving in by Welldon’s side.
“What are you going to do about it, sir? Ground me? Go ahead, it’ll mean I will live to see tomorrow.”
“Twenty years in Leavenworth, how does that sound?” the colonel replied coolly.
“You ever see a plane go down in flames, sir?” and he placed cold sarcasm on the word “sir.” “You ever see a man bail out, on fire, parachute burning when he tried to open it, sir?”
The colonel stood silent.
“You’re talking insubordination in the face of the enemy,” he finally announced, but his voice was shaking slightly and pitched low.
No one spoke, the tension about to explode.
“What the hell.” It was Struble, the dive bomber pilot. “We’re all dead men anyhow with this war, might as well get it over with.”
The tension eased off ever so slightly. Welldon, shaking his head, snatched up the hastily drawn briefing map with the last reported coordinates of the Japanese carriers.
“Let’s go,” he sighed and started for the door, brushing against the colonel as he passed, forcing the man to step back slightly.
Dave, glad he had not had anything to eat, stood up, legs shaking, and moved with the group.
“Lieutenant.”
It was the colonel.
Welldon barely slowed, looking back over his shoulder.
“I have seen men burn,” the colonel replied. “I flew on the Western Front in 1918, and we didn’t have parachutes then.”
Welldon stopped, eyes fixed on the colonel, and he finally nodded.
“I wish I was going with you,” the colonel said softly. “I can’t. I’m sorry, but those are the orders.”
“Yes, sir,” was all Welldon could say.
The colonel made the gesture first, raising his right hand in a salute.
“God be with you,” he said, voice husky.
Welldon and the others saluted in return and headed out the door to their planes.
Dave looked back as he left the room and saw the colonel leaning against the wall, head bowed. He was crying.
Who is he crying for, Dave found himself wondering. Himself, all of this, for us?
This was never how he imagined war would be.
U.S.S. Lexington Five hundred miles west-northwest of Oahu 14:00 hrs local time
Rear Admiral Newton, commander of Task Force Twelve, looked at the transcript, scanned the information, then handed it to Captain Sherman, who was in direct command of Lexington, the old Lady Lex.
Newton still felt uncomfortable having left his natural command post in a cruiser. He knew that in a carrier fight he ought to be near the air component to have better dialogue about the proper tactics, but it still felt odd. He had been a surface warrior all his life, and here he was commanding-ship one of America’s biggest and most powerful aircraft carriers. Still, he would do his duty and lead the task force against the Japanese to the best of his ability.
“This puts the Jap fleet three hundred and twenty miles east of us,” Sherman said, looking up from the transcript of the radio message intercepted from Oahu and then over at th
e plot board.
He handed the paper back to Newton.
“Think it’s valid?” Newton asked. “It could be a Jap ruse.”
“Don’t think so,” Sherman replied. “I know Watson. We served together on Saratoga for a while, about ten years back. He was a year behind me at Annapolis. Good man. I remember hearing how he lost a hand when Panay was hit. Doubt that the Japs would know some of his details, and our radio operator who monitored it said it was definitely the Presidio broadcasting. This is the right stuff.”
Newton went over to the plot board, measuring out the distances.
“If the Japs are steaming west, and we go up to flank speed; we might be able to get a strike in before dark.”
He said it more as a question than a statement.
Sherman shook his head.
“Too many ifs, and besides, it will be dark in four hours. If we order a full strike now, the wind will require turning into the northeast for starters, angling us away from them. At least a two-hour flight out for the Devastators, two hours back--that’s recovery after dark, and that is predicated upon everything going right.
“It won’t work.”
Newton nodded his head in agreement. “So tomorrow morning then?”
“Yes, sir.”
Newton traced a line out with his finger.
“We continue on this course at twenty knots, they continue on their course at the same speed, we could pass right through each other in less than twelve hours. The last thing I want is a surface engagement at night against the Japanese.”
“Agreed, sir.”
They had monitored Draemel’s reports when his small task force had struck the Japanese battleships at night and been slaughtered. It was obvious the Japs had the edge in night combat, something that had been speculated about for years at war games and in reports from the few observers allowed to witness their fleet maneuvers. Beyond that, they had one hell of a tough battleship still in action with their fleet. Meet that at night and it could rip their more lightly armed task force to shreds.
“But, if we do this,” and Sherman traced out a different line, “and they continue due west toward the Marshalls, if at dawn we’re ready to launch, we just might get the first punch in, maybe even tear them apart.”
Newton smiled at the thought.
“That’s what I was thinking as well. We change course in fifteen minutes.” He sighed.
“I wish to hell Halsey had waited, just maneuvered. If we had been able to combine and caught them while together, it would have evened it out.”
“You know Halsey,” Sherman replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “Anyhow, I’d have done the same. It was his only shot. He had to take the risk and do it.”
“Still. . .” and his voice trailed off for a moment. “Hell, I wonder if he’s even alive anymore. I am afraid the Japs got him.”
Akagi 14:05 hrs local time
A Zero winged in low, wagging its wings as it passed at a right angle over the deck and then soared back up, part of their covering patrol, which orbited at five hundred meters above the water to keep an eye out for any torpedo bomber that might slip in out of the low tropical clouds, while a second flight of four orbited to the east, fifteen thousand feet up, ready to pounce on any raid that might come from Oahu, now nearly two hundred miles astern.
Fuchida watched the fighter with envy. Over forty Zeroes were maintaining watch over the carriers, burning a lot of fuel and engine time, but until well clear of any strikes from Oahu, they had to watch in all directions. The PBY and B-17 that had been tagging them were nowhere to be seen, but they had monitored the radio reports.
A strike from whatever the Americans had left on Oahu had to be expected, even at this range. There was also the report from Soryu and Hiryu that after being attacked by naval planes, they had not returned back to their carrier but had flown on a heading back to Pearl. They would have been turned around by now and perhaps were already coming this way.
Scout planes, ranging westward, had yet to spot any additional carriers, and even Genda now wondered if perhaps there had been only two American carriers in the region after all, and both had been sunk by Soryu and Hiryu. Though, of course, logically, he wished for that to be true, in his heart part of him wished that it was not. Then when the admiral lifted the ban on his flying tomorrow, he could lead a strike to finish off what was left of the American fleet. Perhaps there was still one, maybe two more of their carriers out there to engage.
“You want to be up there, don’t you?”
It was his friend Genda, joining him on the open bridge, and he smiled, nodding.
“I’d like to boast that if I had been flying cover over Soryu, it never would have been hit.”
Genda shook his head.
“Such courage. I was in one of our planes. It was faster, I knew it would get me through. But their old Devastators? That was suicide to send them against our Zeroes.”
“It troubles the admiral, too,” Genda replied. “He says it shows they are enraged. We’ve been listening to their radio reports from the mainland. What they are saying is pure hatred of us now.”
“How would we react,” Fuchida said softly, “if it had been them surprising us and bombing our ships in Tokyo Harbor? Of course they are enraged. The only factors now are those that should concern us. Will their rage make them reckless? I think we saw that with their attack this morning. And second, how do we beat them so they give in and negotiate despite their anger? We must sink every ship of theirs in the Pacific, that is obvious now.”
“I thought you’d find this interesting,” Genda said, and handed Fuchida a couple of typewritten sheets of paper. “One of their radio stations on Oahu is back up and broadcasting. We monitored it.”
Fuchida took the paper, scanning the transcript of the transmission, chuckling at first and then stopping.
“Did they get this right?”
“Yes. I remember you talking about him.”
He read the line again.
“This is Commander James Watson . . .”
He felt his throat tighten. James Watson. It was how long ago? Nearly ten years ago they had met at Etajima, the Japanese naval academy, both of them there to give guest lectures, James on Japanese-American relations, he to pitch naval aviation to the cadets.
They had formed a bond the night they met, drinking Scottish whiskey together with their mutual friend Cecil Stanford. And where was Cecil?
A close bond had been there with both, even though he and James had actually been together less than a day. It was one of those things that just happened at times between men of nations that might one day be enemies, but who at that moment shared a mutual love for their professions, and respect for their counterparts.
He had even introduced James to flying, giving him a ride back to Tokyo after their speeches, triggering in James such a love of the experience that he had gone on to get his own plane.
The friendship had broken down after China. Cecil had bitterly confronted him while he was based at Nanking, denouncing what all in the Imperial Navy found equally disgusting, the medieval-like pillage and rape of that city. He shared that outrage but had to defend the honor of his nation to Cecil, who had stormed out of his office, severing all contact.
Cecil had told him about the tragedy James endured, the loss of his hand when the Panay was bombed. There had been a few terse notes between them after that, James making a point of sending a photo of himself with his new plane, a hook rather than his hand clearly visible.
And so their friendships had died as their respective countries, once such good allies, had drifted toward war. The two old friends, however--well, he still considered them to be friends--had often lingered in his thoughts. Now this, a radio intercept of James broadcasting vital information back to the mainland of the United States.
So he was at Pearl Harbor, most likely bending all his efforts now to fight back against Japan.
Damn all. Did he see me yesterday? Did I or one of my
comrades kill friends of his? Most likely so.
He forced a smile as he read further: Watson using the registration number of his plane to help verify who he was.
I’m sorry about that, my friend, he thought, remembering how he had introduced him to flying, the bond it had created between the two.
Perhaps someday when this is all over, and hatreds burn away, just perhaps . . .
He handed the papers back to Genda and said nothing.
Enterprise 14:30 hrs local time
He was never much for literature--that was the stuff that the white-jacket officer types up on the bridge would talk about--but at this moment, it did remind him of Dante’s Inferno, not the book, but a movie he had seen several years earlier starring Spencer Tracy where the guy wound up on a ship that was on fire and sinking, Tracy risking his life to close some steam valve, that on a real ship never would have been located where it was.
And yeah, it did look like that Dante guy’s book as well.
Commander Stubbs, sloshing through knee-deep water, respirator strapped to his face, goggles on to protect his eyes, followed the fire hose aft.
He was six decks down, on the starboard main corridor. Flood control doors were open here to allow access to fire crews and repair teams. Enterprise still had a pronounced list; he felt a bit like a drunk out for a walk, leaning against the tilt, looking for a moment at the water sloshing about on the deck, gauging the angle: at least ten degrees. The counterflooding was still not containing the intake of water cascading in, compounded by the water pumped in by the fire hoses, which was flooding down into the lower decks.
The water was warm, almost hot. He put his hand on a bulkhead and pulled it back. Fire must still be raging on the other side from a ruptured avgas line.
Pearl Harbour and Days of Infamy Page 56
