But Luzon had given the storm no pause. It was over the ocean again, and the South China Sea pumped still more water into the massive vortex. The willfulness of the great typhoon curled it onto a bearing of nearly straight north. It seemed to pull not just wind and water but also lives and property and everything it passed into the insatiable vacuum that lay at its core.
The typhoon came upon Formosa and drenched that hapless place thoroughly, driving Japanese occupiers and Chinese inhabitants alike into such shelter as they could find. A dam burst, inundating a village of better than a hundred people. Whole valleys full of rice nearing harvest were rendered into lakes, the nourishing crop lost to the relentless waters.
Fortunately for the few remaining Japanese fliers on Formosa, most of their airplanes were kept in sheltered caves—the few that sat in the open were picked up and casually tossed aside by the force of the typhoon. The troops, too, were well dug in and stayed in place except for a few that were forced to move to higher ground as the storm flooded their trenches. The people in the cities suffered more, as rivers swelled beyond their banks, and in the countryside the wind wreaked havoc on many small buildings.
Beyond Formosa lay the mainland of China and all the great continent of Asia. But for reasons unknown beyond the swirling scope of the great storm, the typhoon disdained a landfall there. Instead, it continued to the north, crawling across the surface of the East China Sea, lashing the coast as it swept steadily on, stubbornly refusing to turn inland.
Now Korea and the great warm swath of the Yellow Sea lay before the typhoon. The god-storm could go there, swell even more with fresh supplies of water and warmth, but there it would be trapped between the landmasses of China, Manchuria, and Korea itself. With nowhere to turn, it would of necessity spill onto the mainland and, slowly and with great lingering violence, dwindle away.
But the cyclone was lord of all weather, mighty and omnipotent, free of the constraints that bound lesser storms. It could reject the course laid before it for no reason other than its own will, could turn like a creature making the choice to follow a new path. No barrier could stand in its way. Its peak winds now approached 160 miles an hour. Its floods of rain could drown anything in its path.
The storm could go where it would, and so it did. Before it reached the tip of the Korean peninsula, the typhoon god veered onto a new course again, curving to the northeast, riding down the line of the Ryuku Islands. It was bearing upon the Home Islands of Nippon, roaring upward from the southwest.
East and southeast of Japan, thousands of ships and the full might of two great armies plus an armored corps continued to approach the long, storm-whipped coast. The men on the ships carrying the main body could see the great, dark mass to the west and could feel the freshening wind as the front edge of the typhoon came closer. At the same time, 150 miles north and east of that fleet, the diversion force of XIII Corps continued to sail forward under clear skies and only the most gentle of winds.
• FRIDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER 1945 •
BANK OF THE RIVER OTA, HIROSHIMA, 0600 HOURS
(OPERATION CORONET, Y-DAY, N-HOUR + 0000)
Ogawa Michiyo huddled under the lean-to, but she couldn’t avoid the rivulets of water that streamed through the many cracks in her makeshift shelter. The whole wasted city was a landscape of water, and the rain pounded relentlessly. The young woman’s shelter was crude, made from a few wooden walls, all of which were laced with cracks and pocked with holes. It had been her home for more than a month, the place she had slept ever since the B-sans had burned her home and her city.
Michiyo barely noticed her misery anymore. Even as she looked at the infected burn blisters on her arms, felt the gnawing of near starvation in her belly, the torment of her memory was worse. Baby Otomi was dead, incinerated by the fires that she had been unable to douse. She still had nightmares, remembering the horror of holding that tiny, lifeless body. Huddled in the waters beneath the Aioi Bridge, she had begged the baby to take a breath. But there had been no life in him.
Her mother was gone too, torn away from her in the midst of the panicked throng. The older woman was lost to the terror, certainly dead, together with the tens of thousands of others who had perished in the awful fire. Michiyo had searched for her mother anyway, hoping for a miracle, but met only other searchers.
Since that horrible morning, Michiyo had been hiding in the ruined city, dwelling in her small shelter near the banks of the Ota. She ate bits of garbage and flotsam to stay alive. Those whom she met she regarded warily, as they did her. She saw no one she knew. They were probably all dead. Perhaps her brother still lived, but he was a soldier. He would die before the dishonor of surrender, so it was as if he were dead already. Still, she wished she could see him one last time.
Most of those who had survived the attack had left the city, so she had little competition in her foraging. Always she kept near to the river, vividly remembering how the water had kept her alive when everyone and everything around her had burned. With all the buildings charred and blackened, the streets filled with wreckage—and in places still the bodies of the dead—the river was the one part of the city that was now mostly as it had been before. Though wreckage, soot, and even death floated past her, the river had once again become the heartbeat of Michiyo’s city. Here, in those dark waters, Hiroshima was still alive.
But now, those waters took no note of her. As the rain pounded through the great watershed of the Ota, swelling the creeks and streams and tributaries and eventually the river itself, the water level rose and kept rising. She could not know that the Kami Kaze had chosen her delta as the place to make landfall. Tides surged in from the ocean, the force of the storm amplified by the narrow bay. Debris from the bombing, charred timbers and broken pieces of houses and trees, choked the channels, and the waters picked up the wreckage and carried it inland, bearing it like a battering ram straight up the Ota.
The full brunt of the storm came onto the broad, flat shore of Hiroshima. Water roared in from all directions. Michiyo’s lean-to collapsed from the steady force of the rain, and the fragments of wood were picked up by the rising floodwaters.
The boards floated away. The waters rose around her scarred legs, the current pulling her, inviting her, welcoming her. She did not hesitate. She embraced the waters of the Ota and let them wash away her tears, her suffering, and her grief.
The dam of debris, borne by the furious storm, smashed into the support pillars of the Aioi Bridge. The concrete cracked and groaned, and finally the span collapsed, wrecked pavement tumbling into the channel, tossed about by the angry waves.
The flood rose above the riverbanks and swept across the rubble as the current pulled Ogawa Michiyo down into the depths. Perhaps my burden will be less in the next life, she thought, and opened her mouth to accept the water’s intimate caress, as the Divine Wind scoured the charred delta that had once been Hiroshima, carrying its ruins away.
HONSHU, JAPAN, 0615 HOURS (OPERATION CORONET,
Y-DAY, N-HOUR + 0015)
The Kami Kaze was in its full majesty as it boiled onto the great island of Honshu, making landfall at a bay, a long delta where once had been a great city. The whole place was black and stank of ashes and soot. Here there were signs of death, and memories of suffering, and evidence of war.
The storm god reached out a great tendril of wind and swept the site of the once-great city clean.
Then the Divine Wind swept from southwest to northeast, intent on scouring the entire nation of Japan. Waves and floods and storm surges assailed the coast. Rain and wind lashed the inland, driving people into their homes and sometimes even battering those homes into rubble. Rivers flooded, sweeping bridges away. The railroad system of the country, already heavily pounded by American air power, suffered additional damages as many tracks running through river valleys were washed away.
The soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army, braced to defend their homeland against an anticipated invasion, suffered greatly from the onslaught
of wind and rain. Lieutenant Naguro Yoshi finally got to lead his men in battle, but it was a fight against a supernatural foe, not the Americans. On the airfields, all flight operations were suspended on central and southern Honshu—which was where almost all of the aircraft that had been saved for the last-ditch tokko missions had been placed. With the loss of bridges and the flooding effects on many other roads, movement overland was virtually impossible.
When preliminary bombardment began against the beaches around Iwaki, that part of the island had not yet felt the effect of the storm. Yet the reserves were south of there, gathered in the vicinity of Tokyo, and these troops were utterly incapable of movement toward the invasion zone. Electric power was disrupted throughout the capital and farther south and west, further impeding operations and even fundamental communications between army units.
This great typhoon had become one of the largest in history. The god of storms had come for his vengeance and showed no mercy. Instead, he swallowed up southern Honshu as if it were a tiny meal.
And still the storm was hungry for more.
PACIFIC OCEAN, 100 MILES SOUTH OF TOKYO, 0640 HOURS
(OPERATION CORONET, Y-DAY, N-HOUR + 0040)
The weather reports came in to the Supreme Commander with irritating regularity. The navy meteorologists had tracked the mighty typhoon all the way northward from Luzon and now suggested that the storm was going to ravage much of the main island of Japan. The ships of his invasion fleet tossed and tumbled in the tumultuous seas, and the General was informed that the bearing of the storm was now certain.
Unless the fleet withdrew and sailed a hundred miles or more to the south, there was no telling how many of his ships and his men would be lost. Divisions and corps and even whole armies were at risk. Still he refused to give the order. He stood on the open bridge of his cruiser as if he himself were a god equal in strength to the Divine Wind, able to turn back the typhoon by the issuance of an order, or simply the steely glare of his determined eyes.
Initial reports had arrived a few minutes before, informing him that the diversionary force was landing on the beaches at Iwaki against surprisingly light resistance. Patton anticipated moving his armor ashore very quickly, possibly even before the morning was finished. The marines were moving inland quickly to consolidate the beachhead, and the infantry of the 32nd Division was already in landing craft, with orders to land and establish strong fortified lines to the right and left of the broad zone of beaches.
In the meantime, the surf pounded and lashed the shore of Japan’s southeastern coast, extending up as far as Tokyo Bay and the Hanto Peninsula. Amphibious landings would be impossible in these conditions, certainly for at least the next three days and probably longer.
Finally, the Supreme Commander bowed to the inevitable. His hundreds of ships and thousands of men could do nothing for him now except wait in the deep ocean waters, men fighting seasickness, ships struggling to stay afloat. They were only a hundred miles away from their objective, but they could go no closer in the storm. Instead, they were compelled to withdraw.
“Send a message to General Patton,” MacArthur ordered. “Phrase it, ’suggest consolidation of current landing position. Main body delayed by weather. Good luck, and hold on.’”
Even as the message was broadcast, the vast armada turned to the south, fleeing the storm that was mightier even than a great army and a great navy. The fleet would sail beyond the full brunt of the storm and then circle somewhere to the west of Iwo Jima—a place of which most of the men had never heard. The officers would listen to the reports from XIII Corps, knowing that General Patton’s small force would be in dire danger if the Japanese mounted a furious counterattack.
But only when the typhoon had passed could MacArthur’s armies go ashore.
TWENTY-TWO
Honshu, Japan
• FRIDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER 1945 •
USS INDIANAPOLIS, 4 MILES EAST OF IWAKI PORT,
FUKUSHIMA PREFECTURE, HONSHU, JAPAN, 0700 HOURS
(OPERATION CORONET, Y-DAY, N-HOUR + 0100)
When Admiral Spruance located George Patton, the general had his pants unzipped and was urinating over the side of the ship into the waters of the Pacific. The famed commander was watching the flotilla of landing craft heading back toward the transports, the troops moving out across the beach, and the pyres of smoke rising from the shelled and bombed positions beyond the landing zones.
Spruance cleared his throat loudly.
Patton turned his head nonchalantly and continued his business. “Morning, Admiral,” he said cheerfully. “Fine day for an invasion, don’t you think?” He finished, shook himself off, and buttoned his jodhpurs.
It was, indeed, a fine day. The air was crisp and clear, the seas calm. The surf was a steady roll of one- or two-foot waves.
“It’s hard to believe there’s a typhoon a couple of hundred miles away,” Spruance agreed. “From the radio traffic, it sounds like Nimitz and Mac are taking a hell of a pounding.”
The admiral went on. “General Patton, I trust you are aware that the Indianapolis is equipped with modern plumbing. Perhaps the nomenclature has caused confusion. In naval parlance, the toilet is known as the ‘head.’”
Patton laughed. “Oh, this? You know how dogs mark their territory? That’s what I was doing. I pissed in the Rhine, you know, when Third Army rolled across it. I’m just giving the same treatment to these Jap cocksuckers.”
“That seems illogical. Perhaps it increases morale to witness the commanding general acting contemptuously toward the opposite side. May I suggest, however, that you verify the wind direction before attempting this again aboard ship? The consequences could be somewhat unpleasant.”
Spruance spoke in such a serious tone that Patton couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. Before he could ask, the admiral continued.
“Our radio room has received a message to you from General MacArthur.” He handed the paper to Patton.
Patton read it aloud: “‘suggest consolidation of current landing position. Main body delayed by weather. Good luck, and hold on.”
Patton looked at Spruance as he crumpled up the message. “Hold on? Well, he doesn’t tell me exactly what I should hold on to,” he noted. “I think I better make that as much of Honshu as I can possibly get my tanks on!” He chuckled, a high-pitched sound that was almost a giggle.
Spruance nodded. “It would be difficult, and certainly inadvisable, to suspend landing operations at this point. As the moment of your going ashore approaches, we are nearing the time where command of this operation switches from me to you. Is there anything you require that I can begin in anticipation of the command shift?”
The little ramped boats returning to the transports had landed the first wave of marines on shore just an hour earlier, but already a dozen LSTs were driving landward, bulling in between the smaller craft. Following reports that the marines had moved hundreds of yards inland under very light resistance, the flat-bottom ships drove right up onto the beach and immediately started to lower their bow ramps.
When the naval gunnery bombardment had eased, right as the first troops were wading up out of the surf, observers on the ships could see that the enemy had virtually no artillery in the area—or if he did, he was conserving it for later in the battle, since none of the big guns were firing at the vulnerable landing craft or newly landed troops. It was that piece of good news that had caused Patton, with Spruance’s concurrence, to send in the tanks so soon after the first wave.
Patton looked back at his invasion force. Already jeeps and light tanks were rolling out of sight, advancing through the dunes and beyond the seawall. The skies overhead were full of American planes and the kamikaze attacks had been mercifully light. Most of the suicide planes had been shot down by the navy CAP—combat air patrol—before they could even approach their targets. And there was that dearth of enemy artillery—that’s why they had ordered the LSTs to the beach, some six hours ahead of best-case schedule. All in all, it wa
s a very auspicious start to an invasion that was less than an hour old.
“I guess you could have your radio room send a reply to Mac,” Patton allowed.
“Certainly. What would you like to send?” Spruance gestured to a nearby clerk who came forward with a notepad and a pencil.
“How about, Advance Elements Third Army Group ashore and moving inland. Beachhead secure. Opposition light. Anticipate complete force ashore within forty-eight hours, commencing now!” He noted the exact time on his chronograph.
By forty-eight hours from now, Patton fully intended that MacArthur and the world would see exactly what a diversion could accomplish.
BEACH JACKSON, IWAKI, HONSHU, 0945 HOURS (OPERATION CORONET,
Y-DAY, N-HOUR + 0345)
“Gunny, was it like this on Kyushu?”
Pete almost turned around when he heard the kid ask the question. He had to force himself to stop, reminding himself that he was a captain now, in charge of a company of marines. The young marine—Jones was his name, Pete recalled—was experiencing battle for the first time today and had directed his question at Gunnery Sergeant Rinehart, who lay in the sand just behind Pete’s right shoulder. Rinehart had been a lance corporal six months ago but, like a lot of marines, had grown up fast on Kyushu.
“Kid,” Rinehart said, pausing to spit a stream of tobacco over the crest of the dune. It hit the sand with an audible splat. “We come ashore here today wit’ a hunnert and t’irty men in this company. Last I heard, we still got a hunnert and t’irty men. This landing was nuthin like Kyushu.”
MacArthur's War: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan Page 49
