Ghost Carrier: They Died to Fight Another Day

by Robert Child

  “If Maria could bring your Dad back in time to before the ship got hit, maybe he would know about the danger, know what was about to happen.”

  “And he would do everything he could to avoid it.”

  “Right!”

  Frank’s mind raced.

  “Frank, imagine if she could do that. Your father would be alive. He would’ve watched you grow up. Can you imagine that?”

  Frank didn’t have to imagine it. It was the secret desire he had longed for his entire life.

  Chapter 7

  USS LISCOME BAY – MOTION PICTURE PROJECTION ROOM

  Joe was released after several days of tests and evaluations, but he was reassigned to duty away from anything to do with the pilots or their safety. Theo had been true to his word, and he was escorting Joe down to the Motion Picture Projection room and his first Deadman’s Club meeting. Joe didn’t know what to expect, but at least now he would be in the company again of other guys who remembered.

  “I’ll introduce you. You’ll probably know some of the guys already.”

  Theo entered first through the cabin hatch. Men were standing around chatting in small groups. Many were smoking.

  “Guys, I want to introduce a new member to the club.”

  Everyone quieted down and turned.

  “Seaman First Class Joe Rusk. Drowned right here on deck two.”

  “Hey, I was on this deck,” a lanky, pale, red-headed guy called out. “You there when the deck breeched?”

  Joe acknowledged with a nod and a sigh that he was.

  Then a man seated with his back to Joe said, “I was on deck two also, directing fire crews.” The man stood up and turned around.

  “Admiral Mullinnix!” A stunned Joe snapped to attention holding a crisp salute with eyes locked forward. Rear Admiral Henry Mullinnix, fifty-one years old with thinning hair, was an over achieving MIT and Naval Academy grad. His no nonsense Midwestern demeanor endeared him to the men.

  “Relax, sailor. There’s no rank in this club.”

  “Yes, sir,” Joe responded as he slowly brought his hand down.

  “Where you from, son?”

  “Dayton, Ohio, sir.”

  “Dayton. I did some training at Wright Field. Those were some great times in a great town.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Welcome aboard, sailor. Glad to have you with us.” The Admiral turned to one of the ranking officers and said, “I guess we should get started.”

  Men put out their cigarettes and found seats. Theo pointed to two chairs on the aisle.

  Joe grabbed the one on the end.

  Admiral Mullinnix stepped to the front of the room and looked around at his men for a moment.

  Joe looked around the group and noticed all had bowed their heads. He caught the Admiral’s eye and Mullinnix said, “Ah, Joe, we always like to say a few words to the Almighty before we get started.”

  Joe nodded then quickly bowed as Mullinnix continued.

  “Now this isn’t exactly a prayer. It’s more of a kind of blessing for us sorry sons of bitches who find ourselves here.”

  Joe smiled.

  “Dear Lord, help us to understand why we have continued to live when we have all rightly died. Comfort our loved ones left behind in the other world who have had to endure the grief of our passing. Give us the strength to put one foot in front of the other each day and let us never, ever, ever forget who we truly are and where we really come from. Amen.”

  “Amen.” the men responded in unison.

  Joe looked up and saw that Mullinnix was momentarily choked up and struggling with his emotions.

  “Ok, men, war report. And before I get started with our current situation here in the Central Pacific, I had my Chief of Staff pull some newsreels from last year. Now I am not going to say much. I just want you guys to take a look at this. It’s Midway. Charlie, roll the film.”

  The projector beam lit up the front wall as the clatter of the film entering the gate filled the room. A round emblem against a blue background appeared with the words “Official United States Navy.” Music began but it was not that rousing music Joe was so used to in these patriotic newsreels.

  The voice began, “4 June 1942 was a black day for the United States Navy. We shall never forget the loss of our brave American sailors on the Yorktown, Enterprise, and Saratoga and their escort ships. President Wilkie offered comfort to a grieving nation with this message: ‘My fellow Americans, our resolve will never waver, will never extinguish. We will fight the enemy on the beaches at California, at Oregon, and Washington State. Americans will never surrender our soil to the evil Empire of Japan, so help us God.’ ”

  The room fell stone silent.

  “Okay, okay, Charlie, shut it off.” Mullinnix said over the whir of the projector.

  Men remained staring at the now blank motion picture screen where the images had flickered.

  “Seventy ships lost in the greatest naval disaster in the last two hundred years. Saratoga, Enterprise, Yorktown all at the bottom of the Pacific.” The Admiral said grimly.

  “Admiral, that can’t be,” a voice shouted from the back. “We broke their code. We knew that bastard Yamamoto was coming! We sunk four of their carriers--Akagi, Hiryu, Kaga, and Soryu!”

  “We sank none of their carriers, son. Midway was overrun. And another thing you should know. Pearl, the Hawaiian Islands, the Aleutians, have all been lost. They’re under Japanese control. Japan is now the dominant naval power in the Pacific.

  “Jesus.” Joe said as he swung his head down.

  “And if that isn’t bad enough, I’ve got more bad news. What was it – maybe a month ago we hit Tarawa? Do you guys remember what battle we were in before that?”

  Guys looked at one another puzzled.

  “Admiral, we were commissioned in August. We weren’t in battle before Tarawa,” Joe offered. “We only left Pearl what three weeks ago, guys?” He said looking around for nods of confirmation.

  “I’m afraid not, Joe. We never made it to Pearl. We were engaged in the battle of San Diego Harbor when the Japs attacked 16 September. The Liscome Bay was twelve miles down the coast on a training run when the first Jap bombers attacked.”

  “Bombers? What kind of bombers?”

  “Carrier launched. Our base at San Diego is gone. Our repair facility at Bremerton is destroyed. What I’ve been able to decipher from combing the after action reports is that we put up a quite fight and didn’t allow them too far inland. But what’s left of our San Diego naval facility is now held by the Japanese.”

  Men put their heads in their hands.

  “My Chief of Staff has been very helpful in gathering information for me on this, but I’ve had to watch what I say with him.”

  Theo spoke up, “Why’s that, sir?”

  “Can you believe the damn bastard made it? Lucky son of a bitch survived in our world. The one here was never part of our world.”

  “Lord have mercy.”

  “You can say that again, Theo. And I hope you guys realize what this means. What our situation is here in the Pacific.”

  Guys looked again to one another for answers.

  “We’re cut off. Trapped. The Japs control the entire west coast of the United States. I had to read our latest orders from Admiral Nimitz twice today so that I understood them correctly. This task force is now on a one-way mission west, fellas, to Japan.”

  “Japan!” almost all the men said in unison.

  “We’re gonna fire everything we got and wreak as much havoc and destruction on the Japanese mainland as we possibly can. That is if we even make it that far. The Navy, I suspect, doesn’t expect us back.”

  Silence echoed as men retreated into private thoughts while Mullinnix continued.

  “Face it, we’re already dead, fellas. As of right now we’re a goddamn ghost carrier on a suicide mission to certain destruction. Thirty days or so from now, as sure as the sun rises in the east, we’re gonna die all over again.”

&
nbsp; Chapter 8

  Joe sat in the mess hall staring down at mashed potatoes and Salisbury steak growing cold on his plate. He wasn’t hungry and neither were many of the guys who were at the meeting with the Admiral. Joe looked over to Charlie and then to Al. Both seemed to be lost in thought. The food in front of them had gone cold.

  Joe sensed a shift. The ship had taken on a new atmosphere. You didn’t hear much laughter. Guys huddled in groups off by themselves. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he certainly felt it – a divided crew. That natural shipboard camaraderie was completely gone, replaced by don’t trust anybody wariness.

  “Mind some company?” Frank looked up and saw Theo.

  “Sure.”

  Theo settled in across from Joe with a heaping tray.

  “You feel it too, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Joe responded, “Little icy in here.”

  “Sure ‘nough. But don’t you never mind about all that.”

  Frank looked at Theo quizzically.

  “Them guys. We got ‘em out numbered. You can feel them runnin’ scared.”

  Joe looked over at a few of them. They did look a little scared or at least nervous. He suddenly realized that he and the other guys who went down with the ship had now formed a strong bond virtually shutting out everyone else on the ship.

  “Heck of a lot more of us went down with this ship than survived,” Theo continued.

  “Maybe, Theo, they think that we’re banding together against them or something, and they don’t know why.”

  “Maybe.” Theo said absently as he shoveled a heaping fork of gravy smothered mashed potatoes into his mouth.

  “I can’t believe it, Theo. A suicide mission?”

  “Yeah, hell, I was just gettin’ used to being alive,” the big man said with a chuckle.

  Joe relaxed into a smile even though it was a sad one and then changed the subject. “A lotta guys are alive today cause of what you did at Pearl.”

  “Nah, I jus’ did what I had to do.”

  “How many Jap planes you shoot down, two, three?”

  “They tell me four.”

  “Jeez, I can’t even imagine what it was like. Must have been hell being attacked by all those Jap planes like that.”

  Theo’s thoughts drifted back two Decembers earlier to an overcast Sunday morning at Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii.

  “Nobody knew what was happin’, like it weren’t even real. I was on the West Virginia. When I went to my battle station, it weren’t there no more so I run around seeing what I could do. Lt. White grabbed me and told me to help load the .50 cals on the back of the tower. You couldn’t hear nothin’ but all the plane noise. Them Jap planes was buzzin’ so fast everywhere. Zoomin’ around like bees. Soon as I loaded the second gun, I jus’ started firin’ it fast as I could.”

  “You ever shoot one of those guns before?”

  “Nope, but I learned right quick. Used to hunt squirrels with my .22 back in Waco. Just kept my finger on the trigger till I was outta ammo. You couldn’t help but hit somethin’.”

  “Well, that was some damn good shootin’. Damn good.”

  “Yessir!”

  Joe paused looking for the right words, “Theo, we have to fight back. Like at Pearl. We gotta do something. Hell we were winning this goddamn war back in that other world.”

  “Not much we can do. We’re stuck here.”

  “What if…what if we took over the ship. The Admiral would be with us. This is the flagship. The other ships would have to follow us.”

  “Where’d we go?”

  “I’m not sayin’ we go hide someplace. I’m saying we turn this damn Carrier battle group around and go attack the Japs on the west coast. We’ll never make it to Japan, and I don’t see the sense anyway. I don’t understand it. We gotta score to settle with them for sinking our ship.”

  “Well, you got ‘dat right.”

  “Look, the Admiral doesn’t like the orders either. We’re being sacrificed pure and simple, and I don’t know why.”

  Theo nodded in agreement.

  “If I’m gonna die again, I’m gonna do it my way. I want to go out swinging and take as many Japs as I can down with me. We gotta find a way to turn this task force around.”

  MARIA’S LIBRARY READING ROOM

  Katie had taken her position on the sofa and Frank settled in the chair by the window. He didn’t know why, but he was more nervous for this session than the first. Strange he thought as he handed Maria his Hamilton watch.

  “Maria, I’m still confused on some things. Can I ask you a couple questions before we start?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Okay. I was thinking about my father stuck in 1943 in another reality. Wouldn’t he have aged and lived out his life already in that world?”

  “Logically a person would think so because of our notion of linear time. But really, Frank, that isn’t the case at all. Time is not linear. It’s perceptual. Past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. Wherever you are, the time is always now.”

  Frank shook his head not following.

  “Just consider the concept of time Frank. If you’re in New York and it’s 12 noon and you call a friend in London, their time is five hours ahead of ours. It’s 5 pm there. In essence you’re calling from their past. They’ve already experienced 12 noon that day. You hang up with them and decide to call a friend in LA. You’re calling from their future because of the time difference coast to coast. They haven’t experienced 12 noon yet.”

  Frank nodded beginning to get what she was saying.

  “And your life is the same way, Frank. Your future is out in front of you and it’s unfolding right now. Imagine this. Imagine you’re on a hill overlooking a long train going by on tracks below. This train represents your entire lifespan. Each train car is a year in your life.”

  “Okay.”

  “All the train cars exist now. You can see them all moving forward from your vantage point on the hill. Things are happening in each train car or year simultaneously. So each train car or year, like 1943, exists and is always happening because every moment is always happening now.

  Frank tried to process all this. “I think I see what you mean. Everything is now. And the future is?”

  “The front of the train. Your future self is living in your probable future this very instant.”

  “Whoa, that’s something.”

  “Yes. Look, have you ever had the experience of deja vu?”

  Frank nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I have.”

  “Deja vu is you coming up to speed with your future self who has already lived the experience. That’s why when you experience deja vu things look familiar and actions feel like you’ve done them before. Deep within, you retain memories of both your past and your future.”

  Frank grabbed what was left of the hair on his head and tugged.

  “I know, I know, it’s mind blowing, but that is how this universe really works. That’s why a psychic or a medium like myself can peer into your future. It’s happening now. Of course, it’s only your probable future. Things are never set in stone. But that probable future is unfolding at this very second based on the choices you’re making in this now moment.”

  Frank was nodding. It was a completely different way for him to comprehend time and the universe.

  “Let’s get back to your Dad. I’ve asked my guides for help so give me a moment while I bring them in.”

  Maria closed her eyes and began to take deep regular breaths, in and out, in and out.

  “DeBen, we are pleased you could join us here in this time space reality. We are trying to reach Frank’s father, Joe, trapped in a parallel dimension.”

  Frank looked over to Katie.

  “Yes, Yes. But it has been done, correct?” Maria pressed her invisible spirit guide.

  Maria turned toward Frank, her eyes remaining closed, “DeBen is saying that what we are seeking to accomplish has rarely been attempted.”

  Her attention
was drawn inward again, “Yes, yes, oh? Yes. Go on.”

  Frank turned to Katie again. She simply shrugged and looked back to Maria.

  “All right, I will convey this.”

  Frank turned back to Maria and this time she opened her eyes.

  “Frank, your father has continued in the war, but events are quite different in the reality he’s experiencing. America is losing the war.”

  “What?” Frank blurted out.

  “It’s true. His current dimension is on a very different track.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Everything and anything is possible when you have a different past and future.”

  Maria’s attention was drawn inward again, “A moment please.”

  “Oh, oh dear,” she said as she continued to listen to her invisible spirit guides. “But what about…? Nonexistence?”

  Maria opened her eyes slowly and looked at Frank, choosing her words carefully.

  “DeBen was conveying to me that your father is in grave danger. On the reality track he’s in, Japan eventually wins the war. The United States has been weakened by fighting a war on two fronts. In your father’s current reality track, if circumstances don’t change, there is a high probability he will not survive the war.”

  Frank gasped and struggled to hold back tears.

  “But, Frank, there is another thing.”

  “Another thing? How could there be another thing?” Frank asked still processing the pain.

  “Because of the psychic rip or portal that your father and his crew traveled through into the other dimension, they retain a strong soul connection to our reality. That’s why your father retains his memories. You could think of this connection as a cord or a lifeline. A part of his soul is there and a part of it is here.”

  “Okay…,” Frank said needing further explanation.

  “In his current reality I’m being told your father never married. Frank, if he dies in that dimension, it will not only wipe out his future there but also the parallel Joe here who gave birth to you.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “Frank, the version of you that you know is alive in this dimension because of Joe. If we’re unable to reunite you both or if he dies in that reality, the part of his soul remaining here will cease to exist. It will mean that the father that you had never existed in this reality.