“That American chap, Mitchell,” Cecil interjected. “That’s what he said after his planes sank that captured German battleship, and look what happened to him.”
“That was stupidity. A shame how you Americans treated him,” Fuchida replied. “He should have been decorated, not dismissed.”
James did not reply to that one. The Billy Mitchell incident was still a bit too hot to talk about. It was evident that the destruction his planes had wrought had been something of a setup, sinking a captured and condemned German battleship that was anchored in place and not maneuvering. Mitchell had gone outside the reservation with his outspoken opinions to the newspapers; but then again, maybe this eager pilot was right and progress would overtake the beloved ships of his navy. It was hard to imagine, though, that the old Oklahoma could ever be threatened by a crate made of canvas and wood, puttering along at a hundred miles an hour.
“I’m curious as to how you two now see naval aviation and what your admirals are doing with it,” Fuchida asked, as he motioned for a refill of his drink, which Cecil quickly complied with.
Cecil and James looked at each other. If this was an attempt to pump information it was done poorly.
Fuchida laughed softly. “I’m not spying on two who more than a few have said are themselves spies. It’s just that I knew Commander Watson here witnessed the use of Saratoga and Lexington in your war games. In a way they are sister ships of Akagi and Kaga, since all were converted from being battle cruisers after the treaty was signed. Just wanted to catch up with you, Cecil, and hear what Commander Watson has to say.” James could sense a genuineness in this man. He was blunt, direct, and obviously filled with professional curiosity. And it was indeed curious, this relationship between sailors of what might be opposing nations. Between hostilities they would often openly talk about doctrine, publish articles each other had read in their respective journals, chat at conferences, and do as the three of them were now doing.
“Oh, I guess I could say the usual,” James replied. “Though I am not up to speed on such things. That Panama war game was several years back. You undoubtedly have read the journal reports on it. The red team carrier slipped through at a flank- speed run, launched before dawn, and claimed they had blown the locks of the canal by dropping flour bags on them. The judges ruled otherwise. I was onboard Maryland at the time and didn’t see it. So there is no way I can claim to be an expert.”
“But do you think the attack was valid.”
James hesitated. But there was something about Fuchida that was so damn disarming, his open, almost boyish enthusiasm about the subject.
“On our side it is the usual debate,” Fuchida said. “The battleship admirals claim that their ships were, are, and will always be the deciders of battle. Those who were at Tsushima think the carrier was nothing but a scout ship, to locate the enemy fleet, then to serve as fire-direction control for the battleships once they’d closed to firing range.”
Watson chuckled. “Same here. Though remember, I’m signals, not a flyer.”
“And are you trying our codes?” Fuchida asked good- naturedly. “You delivered your speech in Japanese, and I must say it was fairly good.”
“Just have a knack for language,” James said noncommittally. “The Japanese is just sort of a hobby. My wife is half- Japanese, by the way. Her mother was born in Japan, so let’s just say it’s to get on the good side of my mother-in-law.
“How do you two know each other?” James asked, changing the topic.
“Oh, my friend Mitsuo here and I go back a bit. He comes by on a regular basis to talk to the cadets about aviation and then to practice his English on me.”
“And steal some of his scotch,” Fuchida replied. “I will say that any talk you might hear about conflict between us and you, our navies I mean, push it aside. We see our descent from the traditions of His Majesty’s Navy. Remember, the founder of our Imperial Navy, the Great Togo,” and as he said the name he bowed ever so slightly, “long ago trained in England. So there is a brotherhood there.”
“And as for us?” James asked quietly.
Fuchida turned to look at him.
“The Pacific is a vast ocean, my friend. There is room enough for both in their proper spheres of influence.”
“Which are?”
Fuchida chuckled and looked down at his nearly empty drink, making a motion, and Cecil poured out a few more ounces. The bottle was now well more than two thirds empty, and James wondered just how many his friend still had in reserve out here.
“The Philippines, I can see what was almost the accidental placing of it in your hands after your defeat of the Spanish. I actually do believe your American idealistic claim that you wish to decolonize as soon as practical, though your big businesses might object.
“But realize, if Japan is to survive in this modem world it needs the same resources your nations already have at your fingertips... steel, coal, rubber, various metals, and now, increasingly, oil for both ships and airplanes.
“Let me ask you, Cecil, would your government willingly give up its oil holdings in the Middle East?”
Cecil chuckled. In the old days of Admiral Fisher and the naval reforms prior to the war, seizing and holding secured oil, infinitely more efficient than coal to power a battleship, had been a cornerstone of his policy and, by extension, the British government’s.
“We make it fair enough for the locals, and we did bring some semblance of order to the region,” Cecil replied.
“Fair enough for you,” and he now turned to James, “but it is no question, you Americans are swimming in oil. For Japan, there are a few small wells in the far northern islands, barely a trickle of a few thousand barrels leaking out of them. So there alone we are vulnerable. Nearly every drop of oil that powers our ships we must purchase and at a premium from one or the other of you or the Dutch in the East Indies.”
“So you would like to secure these resources?” James asked.
Fuchida smiled. “Trade is better of course,” he replied. “And, dear friends, don’t quote me, I’m just a naval lieutenant trying to get those above me interested in flying.”
“But of course,” Cecil replied smoothly.
“I cannot speak for policy,” Fuchida continued, “but I think it fair to say that if wiser heads prevail, on both sides, the three of us can find far more in common than what might divide us. There are, of course, the Soviets to contend with; and remember, they are not at your back door, but they are most certainly at ours.”
“Though Stalin has backed away from the more radical talk of the International and Trotsky has fallen, still they export their disease into China with this new revolutionary leader there, this Mao. Imagine China as Communist, and you and I might find ourselves side by side trying to block them.”
“I would think that the Nationalists have him well in hand,” James said.
Fuchida shook his head.
“Give it five years,” he replied. “You Westerners do not understand the Chinese as we do. Remember, we have had two thousand years of dealing with them; you have not. Oh, you have your sentimental visions of them from your missionaries; but China can only be ruled by one central authority, and for now, the thought of any democratic rule, the line that the Nationalists parrot to you in order to receive aid, flies in the face of their history.”
“So you will go into China?” James asked.
“I did not say that,” Fuchida said forcefully. “And besides, even if that did happen, it would not be a naval affair, it would be the army, and they are a different breed.”
He fell silent and James registered something in his manner and speech. A hint of disdain in his reference to the army.
“Another?” Cecil asked, holding up what was left of the bottle.
Fuchida hesitated, making as if to stand up to leave.
“Come on, my friend,” Cecil said. “I don’t have to teach tomorrow. I look forward to hearing your talk, then seeing the two of you off in your plane. Bes
ides, I want to hear about your insanity with this flying. Bad enough getting off the ground, but from the deck of a ship?”
Fuchida smiled and held his glass back up, and there was something in the gesture that made James smile.
Within a minute, loosened up a bit by a few more sips of scotch, the Japanese pilot was talking animatedly about the future of naval aviation, dreams of new designs, of planes that could cruise at four hundred kilometers per hour, how the battleship was obsolete, as proven by the now disgraced Billy Mitchell, and all three were soon sharing the usual complaints about the hidebound nature of battleship admirals lost in the past.
And as the hours slipped by James found, at first, an admiration for this young man, so dedicated, so intellectual and visionary. Perhaps it was fueled by the scotch, perhaps by sentiment, but it was not all that long ago that he and Cecil had been like him, though their passion was code breaking.
With the coming of dawn another bottle had been consumed, and the three were trading songs, at first traditional ballads of their respective branches, and from there descending into bawdy chanties that seemed to be amazingly universal in their plots and themes, no matter what the language.
Near Tokyo: April 1934 2:30 p.m.
“Hung over or not, my friend, I think it’s time you saw what we can do!”
James, strapped down in the backseat of the open cockpit American-made Stearman biplane, wanted to beg for mercy.
The flight, well so far, had been relatively uneventful, even though he did vomit within five minutes after they had lifted off from the grass strip, leaving behind Cecil and several dozen cadets who had attended Fuchida’s animated lecture about the future of naval aviation.
He tried to conceal what was happening in the backseat of the plane as he clutched the paper bag, losing his breakfast and the very, very light lunch he had all but avoided in anticipation of the flight.
But Fuchida had heard the wretching noises, in spite of the howling of the wind around them, and chuckled through the voice tube . . . “still hung over?”
James could only groan. He was indeed hung over, and when finished vomiting, embarrassed, he didn’t know what to do until Fuchida told him to just simply toss the bag over the side.
He had leveled out at seven thousand feet, flying by dead reckoning along the east coast of Japan, and James, after a few more queasy moments, found that with the higher altitude, the cool, actually cold air, and the steadiness of the pilot’s hand, his stomach had settled down. After a half hour he was no longer clutching the sides of the cockpit with a death grip, and after forty-five minutes, had even at last taken up Fuchida’s offer for him to handle the stick and rudder.
And he was hooked. A scattering of cumulus clouds were forming, the warm air rising up from newly plowed fields below, and Fuchida had guided him through first circling one, then popping through it. At the final second before entering the billowy mass, James had nearly panicked, it looked so solid, and then he had burst out laughing as they blew through the other side a few seconds later. The second time he had actually piloted the plane into the next cloud, before they leveled out and continued on their heading to Tokyo.
Japan from the air was stunningly beautiful. The rich greens of early spring, fields of cherry, plum, and peach orchards startlingly brilliant in their multihued splashes of color. Small farm and fishing villages neatly laid out, the spine of the mountains of the central highlands, the highest peaks still capped with snow. He had hoped to see Fuji, and his friend had pointed out the direction, but it was capped in clouds. Ahead, he could see a distant haze and the outline of the bay. Tokyo was not far off now.
“Hang on!” Fuchida cried, and a second later the plane went into an aileron roll. As it tipped over and went inverted, James could not suppress a gasp of panic as they hung upside down, shoulder straps digging in, then easing as the roll continued, and only seconds later leveling out.
He felt a queasiness returning.
“Like it?” Fuchida asked.
“Yeah, sure,” James gasped.
“Then another one!”
This time James could feel the stick, which he held lightly, slap over hard, nose down a bit, the rudder petals shifting as Fuchida fed in opposite rudder. And the plane snapped over in a blur, ground and sky inverting, and then rolling back out.
“Now you do it?” Fuchida announced.
“What?”
“You do one. It always feels better when you are in control. Come on, James.”
He swallowed hard, the nausea building, again that terrible first warning, cold sweat breaking out.
“Push the stick over to your left and then push the right rudder as you begin to roll; that will keep you from just going into a banking turn. Keep the nose down as you roll, then reverse slightly, pull the stick back a little when inverted, that will keep the nose down, then forward again as you come out of the roll, then level off.”
James said nothing, the sweat beginning to soak him.
“Ready?”
“Yeah,” was all he could gasp.
“Now!”
He didn’t budge the stick for a moment until finally he felt it nudge slightly under his hand, Fuchida up forward urging him on. He had to take the challenge and did as ordered, pushing hard over to his left, working the rudder, feeling Fuchida guiding him there a bit, adding in a little more, and the plane rolled through onto its back. For a second he panicked, feeling as if they were about to just simply fall upside down, but the roll continued and several seconds later they were leveled back out... and he felt a pure rush of joy!
“Damn, that was great!” he shouted.
“Another one then?”
“Sure!”
This time he felt more confident and once the roll was completed, he could not resist leaning forward and slapping Fuchida on the shoulder, the pilot laughing.
“I’ll take you on as a student and have you flying off carriers in six months!”
“If only,” James replied.
Their four rolls had dropped them down a couple of thousand feet, so he could now see Tokyo Bay clearly ahead.
“We’ll soon be over the bay, so no playing around, but I want to show you something,” Fuchida announced.
“Anything.”
And James found the nausea was gone, and at this moment he wished they could just continue to stay up here, to float through the sky, the roar of the engine now a wonderful harmonious sound.
“Recognize anything?” Fuchida asked.
James looked around and found that he could easily see the vast sprawl of the city just half a dozen miles ahead, smoke from factories, not sure but perhaps a glimpse of the Imperial compound, and then the harbor itself filled with hundreds of ships, half a dozen passenger steamers, dozens of cargo ships, even the dots of sails of sampans and there, in the naval yard, his own ship, the Oklahoma.
Fuchida banked slightly and lined up on the battlewagon and throttled up, the pitch of the engine going from a steady reassuring hum to a loud roar, the wind shrieking in the wires and support struts.
Details started to become evident, even the white dots of sailors up on deck.
“You still strapped in?” Fuchida asked.
“Yes, why?”
And with that his stomach felt as if it were up in his throat as Fuchida pushed the nose over into a dive, again a moment of panic, but James rode it out, stunned by the acceleration of speed, the size of his ship growing. They were heading down at a 60-degree dive for the bay below, and though he trusted the pilot, he did wonder for a second if they would just simply plow into the ocean. At what seemed the last possible second he felt as if he were being shoved down into his seat as they pulled several Gs coming out of the dive, leveling out a scant fifty feet above the harbor, racing straight toward the Oklahoma.
They were less than a mile out, and within seconds the battleship seemed to fill the world before him, becoming larger and yet larger. He could see some of the sailors on the deck turning, lo
oking, pointing.
“Can’t get too close!” Fuchida shouted, “your captain might not approve!”
And he yanked back on the stick, the plane soaring back up and then banking over sharply so that James was looking straight down at the deck, five hundred feet below.
“That’s what a torpedo attack would be like!” Fuchida shouted.
James could not reply, startled by the moment. He had been caught up by the sheer exhilaration, even contemplating how he would boast to his comrades later that he was aboard the plane that buzzed them, but now he saw it differently.
He could imagine twenty, thirty such planes coming in at the same time and the thought was frightful. And in that instant he knew that the pilot Fuchida was right, and all the admirals were dead on wrong. This crate he was in was the future, not the guns down below.
It took years to build a battlewagon and tens of millions of dollars, and millions more just to keep her afloat each year. The plane he was in, how much? Ten thousand at most. The pilot far more expensive than the plane. If twenty such planes could break through, armed with torpedoes, the only thing that could stop them would be other planes, if they reacted fast enough. If not, the battleship was as good as dead.
Their conversation of last night, Fuchida’s animated lecture of this morning--he was right. Planes would continue to improve, become faster, more agile, have greater range, be more deadly, while the battleship had reached its climax: nothing could be added to it to make it more efficient other than to just make it bigger, with bigger guns, but what use were those guns against planes? And a bigger ship would simply be a larger target to hit from above.
He said nothing, looking aft as they raced off and then the engine throttled back, speed dropping. They were coming down, and he saw the landing field, a broad open grass plain with a paved strip in the middle.
Pearl Harbour - A novel of December 8th Page 5
