“No gear, break off and go around.”
The hell with that. He could smell the engine burning out from the far too lean mixture. He was running on fumes; break off now and he’d wind up plowing into the wreckage of the bases below before he could even get back into the pattern. His landing gear was shot up, and circling wasn’t going to change a damn thing now.
He angled to one side of the landing strip; thank God this one was wide, at least two hundred feet across.
“X-ray One, go around!”
He didn’t even bother to reply. Felt ground effect begin to kick in as he began to level out ten feet above the runway, air speed dropping, back stick, don’t yo-yo, little more back stick, his battered Wildcat floating for a hundred yards and then a gut-tearing screeching as the aluminum underbelly hit the concrete. The nose dropped, props striking, instantly stopping, bent back. He began to skid sideways, part of his starboard wing shearing off as the Wildcat looped on its belly. He braced; the impact was hard, blurring his vision . . . and then silence, except for the wailing of an ambulance siren, two vehicles racing over, one a truck with a roughly painted red cross on its side, the other a crash wagon, an asbestos Joe riding on the sideboard, jumping off even before the truck rolled to a stop, the man leaping up on to the portside wing, climbing up to Dave’s side while two others ran to the front of the plane and began to hose the engine with fire retardant.
The asbestos Joe, looking like some kind of spaceman from a Flash Gordon serial, reached in, unsnapped his harness and pulled him out of the cockpit.
“You injured, sir?”
“Don’t think so.”
They were on the ground, his rescuer guiding him a safe distance back from the Wildcat, which seemed like a dying friend, engine ticking from the heat, hissing from the fire retardant striking hot metal, its lifeblood, oil and hydraulic fluid, pooling out underneath it.
And he suddenly felt heartsick. She had been his plane. When first she was given to him, just a month ago, and he had made his first landing on the Enterprise, he’d go to the hangar deck at night, walking around her, running his hands along her side, as if she were a lover whom he could always trust and who in turn could trust him. He had believed that together they’d always come back. She had been something living to him, and now she was dying.
An army mechanic came up, chewing a wad of tobacco, took a long look, and shook his head.
“Junk pile for spare parts now.”
Dave looked at him coldly.
“You just screwed up fifty-three thousand dollars, sir.”
“Get the hell away and leave me alone,” Dave snapped. The mechanic, still shaking his head, walked away.
A tractor rolled up and turned. The mechanic and two other men ran cables out, sinking hooks in through the cowling to the engine frame.
“Take her away, Charlie,” the mechanic shouted. The tractor revved up. He wanted to scream at them to stop, to leave her alone as she died, but she was blocking part of the active runway. The Dauntless behind him had aborted and circled around. Gloria Ann, higher up, was circling the field, popping off another red flare to indicate wounded aboard.
His plane emitted a harsh metallic cry as they began to drag her away, bits of aluminum undercarriage and part of a tire left behind in her wake, trailing oil, hydraulic fluid, even a faint whiff of avgas. They dumped her at the edge of the runway, disconnected, and the tractor drove off. To either side were other dead planes, some of them completely burned out, others being dissected, like bodies on an autopsy table cut open for parts, or maybe in some vain hope that, Frankensteinlike, life could be jolted back into them.
The Dauntlesses came in, rolled out, and last came Gloria Ann, silhouetted by the western twilight, most of her vertical stabilizer and rudder shot clear away, holes punched through the length of the fuselage. She came down with a hard bounce, lifted, seemed to hang in a dangerous stall, nosing over slightly, came down hard again on two wheels, tires shrieking in protest, and then rolled out. The meat wagon that had been beside his plane was now racing down the runway, siren echoing.
He stood by his plane, took off his leather helmet, unsnapped the seat parachute, and just let it drop to the ground, lifted off his yellow Mae West, let that drop as well, and opened his shirt, letting the cool breeze envelop him.
“Sir?”
It was the damn pesky intelligence officer from earlier, clipboard in hand, the colonel who had sent them out by his side. He didn’t reply, didn’t salute.
“Just a few questions,” the colonel said softly, “then we’ll leave you alone for now.” He nodded.
“We heard that a dive bomber crashed into one of the Jap carriers.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Who?”
“I think it was Struble.”
“Was it a controlled crash?”
“What?”
“Did he deliberately fly it in?”
Something told him they were looking for a hero. He didn’t know. Dan could have already been dead; the shell burst had pretty well hit him head on.
“Yeah, he flew her in,” he finally replied.
“Can you identify the carrier?”
“Akagi, I think.”
“Was it the same as the carrier hit earlier?”
He looked at them, tried to picture the glimpse of the first carrier, but he was down low then, skimming waves, trying to cover the Devastators, God save them, those poor bastards.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“One more question, sir.” It was the lieutenant, but the colonel put his hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder.
“Later, we can do it later.”
The lieutenant, a bit embarrassed, walked away, heading up toward where the two Dauntlesses had taxied off the runway.
“Need a cigarette, son?” the colonel asked.
Dave nodded. Yeah, I started smoking this morning, he realized.
The colonel lit one and handed it over, reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a flask, and handed it to Dave as well.
“Take a good long drink.”
Dave did, almost as if ordered. Unlike most pilots, he had never joined in the riotous drinking bouts when on leave. He had rarely had anything more than a few beers. But he took the flask, downed two long gulps, coughed a bit between the smoke and the burning of the whiskey, and handed the flask back.
“Son, I think you should know something.”
He looked at the officer, face barely distinguishable now in the deepening twilight.
“You’re an ace. First of the war. Radio reports state you dropped two Japs this afternoon. Reports of other pilots say you got three in the other two fights. The whole nation will be hearing about you, son. You better be ready for it.”
“Who said I got five?” he asked, confused. It was all so damn confusing . . . too much to take in now.
The colonel hesitated.
“Struble for one witnessed two of your kills and reported them earlier today.”
“I don’t remember,” was all he could say, “and besides, like I said, Struble is dead.”
“I know.”
The colonel squeezed his shoulder in a fatherly gesture and walked away, leaving him alone with the wreckage of his plane.
He was alone, soft tropical breeze touching him, cooling, gentle. He sat down, sinking into the shadows, hands touching the warm earth, recalling boyhood days, lying on the ground, watching the clouds, wondering how angels saw them, a few memories, a precious few, of girls by his side, playing at almost making love, snuggled together on a sunlit hillside, concealed in the high grass.
It was a life, a world, remote, gone forever. He began to shake, too many images flashing in his mind, like a film projector gone berserk, running insanely fast, film spilling out: Struble, Gregory, a glimpse of a white plane, red sun on fuselage. Did I kill that man? The P-40 pilot screaming as he burned . . . Turn off your damn mike! Enterprise--were they still alive . . . Am I still alive?
He felt as if there were two of him sitting there. There was him, the me of this moment, shivering, stinking of sweat, vomit, fear, and yes, feeling a strange, detached, primal joy. I am still alive, the rest are dead, but I am still here, still breathing. I am alive.
And there was the “other.” Someone who was him, who just two days ago could laugh as he darted between sunlit clouds, and could look heavenward, high up, all so high up where the air was so thin and pure, knowing at that moment there was not another living soul who saw the world as he did. A boy who could laugh, smile, dream of his girl by his side in the darkness, memories of home, Midwestern pastures and distant horizons.
That boy was someone else, who at that moment arose out of him, and without looking back, walked away, into the darkness. He would be lost out there forever, a fading memory, wandering alone-- and he would never return.
Dave lowered his head and silently wept.
Chapter Twelve
Enterprise 145 miles east-southeast of Oahu 19:15hrs local time
Commander Stubbs, Admiral Halsey by his side, stood on the deck of their beloved Enterprise, still listing at nearly eight degrees to starboard, Stubbs with megaphone in hand.
The heavy cruiser Indianapolis lay thirty yards off, precisely matching speed and course, a dozen lines and cables linking the two ships--electrical cables to provide additional power for pumps, bosun’s chairs for the transfer of the less critically wounded and slings for the stretcher cases, hoists for the transfer of portable pumps, foam generators, and medical supplies.
Indianapolis had swung in alongside at nautical twilight and Halsey had already announced that regardless of the condition of Enterprise, she was to cast off and move away just before moonrise in a little less than four hours.
The Japs had a fix on them, and submarines might be closing in, like hyenas circling a wounded beast, ready to dart in for a kill. He would not risk what was now one of the two heaviest ships America still had in the entire Pacific.
To his dismay, Indianapolis had informed them that they had little fuel oil to spare, having engaged in high-speed maneuvers prior to the war warning.
Halsey now was facing a choice perhaps even tougher than his decision of the night before to turn north and alone seek out the entire Japanese fleet, with the forlorn hope that he just might get a first strike and a killing blow. Do I go back to Pearl or turn due east and run for the West Coast?
The second choice was damn near impossible now. Even if they did survive the night and contain the fires still raging below, somehow block off the holes cut into their hull by the torpedoes, pump out the decks above the starboard engine room, where miraculously the crew trapped down there were still alive and thus keeping the ship alive, and somehow make speed again on two or three of their four screws--even with all that they would run dry a thousand miles off the coast, and the accompanying destroyers would have lost steam long before that.
Enterprise had hemorrhaged out too much precious fuel oil, and a good portion of the rest was now polluted with seawater due to emergency counterflooding. Still, Stubbs had announced they might be able to pump out the contaminated fuel and somehow distill out enough of the water so that what was left could burn.
And, yet, if I turn back toward Pearl? What guarantee was there that tomorrow, the Jap fleet in its entirety would be waiting for him? Though the Big E was one hell of a fighting lady, even with his pride in her, he knew that one more hit would most likely prove fatal, especially if it was a torpedo. Even if the Jap fleet was no longer near the island--and a gut instinct told him they would not be--they undoubtedly were facing fuel issues as well, and that meant they were most likely steaming westward, to some reserve tankers positioned in the Marshalls. Nevertheless, the waters would be crawling with their subs, and making ten knots or less, the carrier was easy prey and they would go for it.
Once into Pearl, then what? Their radio contacts were coming back on line, one of them a definite link to the mainland. They were not yet encoding, but at least speaking cryptically. Some smart guy had come up with the idea of using Hungarian, figuring that was a language that, at least within the Japanese fleet, no one would have a clue about. They had a native-born speaker on the island and back on the mainland they had scrambled and found someone who could speak it as well. Thank God one of the messroom stewards on board the Enterprise was born in Budapest, knew the lingo, and had suddenly found himself in the CIC, providing translation.
Even then they spoke cryptically. The whole world could listen in if tuned to the right frequency. Tokyo would figure it out soon enough and find someone, most likely from the embassy of Hungary, now a tacit Axis ally, who would help them out.
Mention was made that the “big bathtub” broke. That was easy enough to figure out. Number one drydock, the only facility that could contain Enterprise, or for that matter Lexington, was out of operation. The primary damage below the waterline would be impossible to repair at Pearl without that dry dock.
A civilian radio station, the damn fools, had already broadcast that the oil tank farms were ablaze, but then again that didn’t need any coding; the Japs clearly must have known that.
It was even doubtful if they could clear the main channel, according to a report that “a key was broken off in the lock and it couldn’t be opened.”
There had been some head scratching on that one, the mess steward swearing he got it right, until one of the radio operators figured it out. The various channels of Pearl Harbor were referred to as lochs, and it must mean the main entryway was blocked by wreckage.
So, no sense to turn toward Pearl, run the gauntlet of subs, and then find themselves sitting five miles offshore, unable to head in, perhaps for days.
Pearl was out, but there was one tragic point to that besides trying to save the ship. At least three hundred men on board were dead, another five hundred injured, many of them badly burned. Every surgeon and corpsman on board had been frantically at work since dawn. One of the doctors from Indianapolis had already transferred over, along with cases of plasma, sulfa, morphine, and anesthesia, but it was still nowhere near enough.
If they took the long road back to the States, it’d take at least two weeks or more, and of those five hundred, many would die who could have been saved, and even those who were saved would be in agony.
He had ventured below deck an hour ago, making a stop at one of the triage centers. Across all the years of his career, those had been the toughest minutes. At least fifty men had been “set aside,” too badly injured to be saved here, though back on the mainland, with enough doctors available, some most likely would make it.
Most were unconscious or doped with increasingly scarce morphine. But some were fully conscious. No amount of morphine would be able to deaden the agony of flash burns, or the parboiling of human flesh from blasts of superheated steam from ruptured lines.
He tried to make eye contact, speak a few words of encouragement, and tell them how proud he was of them. Some could not reply, and some looked at him vacantly as if no longer knowing who he was. One had asked him to write his mother, and he promised he would, a petty officer taking down her address on a napkin, which he had put in his breast pocket. The toughest one, though, was an old hand, a chief petty officer, whom he had some recollection of from years ago, but now it was nearly impossible to recognize the man, his face so contorted with pain. The petty officer held his hand up and Halsey had knelt down by his side to take it.
“I’m proud of our Big E, sir,” he gasped, “and, sir, I’m proud of you. Don’t give up the ship.”
He could not reply, merely nodded, squeezed the man’s hand and moved on. Once out in the corridor, he struggled not to break down. Too many were watching. He fought the exhaustion; he had had less than four hours sleep in the last two days. After the risky maneuver with Indianapolis was finished, maybe then he would go to his cabin, close the door, and try to block things out for a few hours.
A heavy jet of water burst fro
m near the stern of the Indianapolis, just barely visible in the starlight. There was the red glow of battle lanterns, shining against the side of Enterprise, penetrating in through the hole just above the waterline where a torpedo had hit. Another hose stretched from the Indianapolis opened up, aimed at the still-smoking machine shop on the hangar deck, its power and volume far exceeding the overstressed fire pumps on board ship, freeing up electrical power which Stubbs, turning to an assistant, ordered should now be transferred to one of the drain pumps fighting against the water flooding in from the aft torpedo hit.
“Sir.”
Both turned, it was a seaman first class, breathing hard, uniform blackened, soaking wet and stinking of oil.
“Go ahead,” Stubbs replied.
“Lieutenant Anderson reports that the last of the aviation gas, except for a thousand gallons safely secured in a forward tank, has been jettisoned overboard. Ventilators are working now, pumping out the fumes overboard as well.”
“Very well, and congratulate the lieutenant on a job well done.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.”
The seaman saluted and started to run back across the deck, disappearing into the dark.
“One less worry,” Stubbs announced.
Ruptured avgas tanks were perhaps the biggest fear on board a carrier. Fuel oil could burn, but rarely would the fumes explode. The hundred-octane aviation gas, however, was nothing less than a giant bomb below decks. Not only would it burn like an inferno if ignited, but if a fuel tank was ruptured and the fumes blown through the ship, and a single spark hit those fumes, and the mixture between gas in the air and oxygen was just right, the explosion could be more deadly than any bomb ever dropped. It could sink them, and from the battleship admirals’ side, had always been one of the main arguments against putting trust in a carrier, which could never sustain any kind of damage and survive, let alone return to the fight.
She had been hit twice this morning and still launched a second strike, she’d been hit again, and by God, she would survive.
Pearl Harbour and Days of Infamy Page 62
