by Robert Gandt
Abruptly Ugaki rose and left the bunker. Whatever emotions he may have felt, he was keeping to himself. It wasn’t in Ugaki’s chemistry to wring his hands over such things. Nor would he display remorse at having ignored the counsel of a subordinate such as Captain Okamura.
The flat countryside outside the bunker was bathed in the soft sunshine of spring. As Ugaki trudged back to his command shack on the hill, he began to shed his anguish at the failed mission. He was no stranger to calamity. Since the Imperial Japanese Navy’s first great triumph at Pearl Harbor, he had witnessed crushing defeats at Midway, the Solomons, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and then Leyte Gulf. Only by the narrowest of margins had he escaped being killed with Yamamoto. He’d been spared again at Leyte Gulf. Ugaki was a religious man, and he chose to believe that he had been saved by divine intervention so that he could deliver retribution to the Americans.
By now Ugaki was ensnared in the same web of delusions that guided the Japanese high command. Even if the Ohkas had failed to reach their targets, Ugaki was sure that many of his other tokko raiders had inflicted great losses on the enemy. Based on several pilots’ final radio transmissions of “I am going to ram a carrier,” he concluded that the United States had lost at least five carriers in the past four days. At this rate, the Americans would have no choice except to withdraw.
As usual, Vice Adm. Kelly Turner was right. The Japanese didn’t suspect that the Americans had an interest in the Kerama Retto, the cluster of islands off Okinawa. The Retto was defended by only a small Japanese force. Turner’s amphibious invasion at dawn on March 26 took them by surprise.
But the Alligator hadn’t taken any chances. For two days before the Army’s 77th Division landed on the islands, three destroyers and two cruisers had hammered the coastline with shellfire. Carrier-based fighter-bombers delivered air strikes, and underwater demolition teams surveyed the landing beaches and marked the locations of coral reefs. When the landing ships and troop-filled amphibious tractors hit the beaches, most of the defenders fell back to the hills and caves. Except for a handful of holdouts who remained in hiding, the small garrison was soon wiped out.
The only retaliation came that evening in the form of nine kamikaze aircraft. One managed to hit a destroyer’s stern, taking out a 40-millimeter gun mount. Another destroyer took a near miss.
In less than twenty-four hours, the Kerama Retto became U.S. property. An unexpected bonus was the discovery of more than 250 “Q-boats”—18-foot-long suicide boats, built of plywood and armed with 250-pound depth charges. The boats were hidden in camouflaged shelters and caves throughout the islands of the Retto. With a crew of one, they had a top speed of about 20 knots and were intended for a massed night attack on the U.S. transport ships off Okinawa.
Within two days of the invasion, Turner’s new anchorage at Kerama Retto was open for business. Tankers, ammunition ships, repair ships, and mine and patrol craft all began crowding into the roadstead. Two squadrons of PBM Mariner seaplanes began operating in the cleared waterway.
It was the last stage of preparation. The Alligator was ready to land on Okinawa.
11 THREE SECONDS TO DIE
NORTHERN RYUKYU ISLANDS
MARCH 26, 1945
Erickson’s confidence was growing. He was still the CAG’s number four, and this morning they were attacking the island of Amami Oshima, at the northern end of the Ryukyu chain. It was part of the preinvasion softening up, hitting each of the Japanese island bases north of Okinawa.
The flight of VBF-10 and VF-10 Corsairs rocketed and strafed the barracks complex on the island until all the buildings were ablaze. Then they returned to Intrepid for a quick lunch, and an hour later they were doing the same thing to the enemy airfield at Tokuno, one island below Amami Oshima.
It was dangerous work. The Japanese were shooting back with all the firepower they had on the island, but so far none of the Corsairs had been hit. Pulling off the target, Erickson could see the results of their efforts. Smoke was pouring from the shattered buildings and airplanes.
Erickson allowed himself a brief moment of satisfaction. This was precisely what he had been trained for, flying a fighter-bomber in combat, and he was doing it damned well.
Then something caught his eye. Another Corsair, one flown by Ens. Al Hasse, was still in its dive. As Erickson watched, the dark blue shape of the fighter morphed into an orange ball of fire.
Erickson blinked, not sure of what he’d seen. There’d been no telltale trail of smoke, no radio call, no clue that Hasse was hit. It happened in an instant. The Corsair was there, then it was gone, a shower of burning debris. Erickson kept his eyes on the fireball until it hit the ocean. To no one’s surprise, there was no parachute.
Al Hasse was one of the residents of Boys’ Town. He and Erickson had been buddies since their flight training days. An old naval aviation adage flashed through Erickson’s head: “Three years to train, three seconds to die.”
The flight rejoined and headed back to the carrier. For once the tactical frequency was silent. No one felt like talking.
The day didn’t get any better. Another Tail End Charlie, Ens. Jim “Ziggy” South, had hung around Tokuno to make an extra run on the target. South was a muscular young man who had been an amateur boxer back in Kansas. He’d earned the nickname “Ziggy,” he liked to say, because he zigged in the ring when he should have zagged.
Pulling off the target, he found that he was all alone. While he made his extra run on the target, the rest of his flight had departed. And then, flying solo back to the ship, South started hearing things. A bothersome noise was coming from up front, as if his engine was cutting out.
Nearing the Intrepid, he spotted a pair of Corsairs from his squadron, a section led by skipper Will Rawie, with his wingman, Ens. Tommy Thompson. South joined up on Thompson’s wing, and together they entered an orbit over the ship while they waited for the signal to recover.
It was then when things went to hell.
Ziggy South never knew whether he was distracted by his engine noises or Thompson made a too-abrupt control input. All he knew was that in the next moment his propeller was whacking like a meat cleaver through Tommy Thompson’s starboard wing.
Both Corsairs were finished. Thompson’s crippled fighter rolled into a dive, shedding pieces from its destroyed wing. Thompson jettisoned the canopy and went over the side. Seconds later his parachute canopy blossomed, and he floated down toward a waiting destroyer.
South’s Corsair was still controllable, but the shattered propeller was shaking the airplane so hard he had to shut the engine down. Preferring to ditch instead of bailing out, he glided the big gull-winged fighter down to the water.
It would have been a successful ditching. The problem was, the Corsair lost hydraulic power when the engine shut down, and the landing gear flopped out. When the fighter hit the water, it flipped upside down and sank like a stone.
South was trapped in the sinking airplane. He was snagged by his parachute, which was caught on something inside the cockpit. Running out of breath, with the water pressure building in his ears, he fought against the panic that gripped him. In desperation, he yanked the handle that would inflate his life raft.
With a pop and an explosion of gas, the raft inflated, shoving him out of the seat. The raft soared to the surface, hauling South with it. Gasping, he clung to the raft, too weak from the struggle even to wave his arms. A sailor from a nearby destroyer dove into the water and swam to him with a line.
South was hauled aboard the tin can, still dazed and wondering what the hell had happened. All he knew was that five minutes earlier he’d been flying on Tommy Thompson’s wing, and now they were both on a destroyer.
It was another somber evening in Boys’ Town. This one seemed especially grim, since several of them had watched Al Hasse get blown to bits over Tokuno that morning.
By now, observing the loss of one of the Tail End Charlies had become a ritual. First someone had to empty the missing ma
n’s locker and inventory his effects. Then they broke out their stash of Coon Range whisky, which they’d sneaked aboard back in Alameda. They would toast the departed pilot, recall a few good stories about him, and mostly try to numb their own jangled emotions.
Losing a guy like Hasse was tough. He had been with them through flight training, through advanced fighter indoctrination, and through the forming up of the new squadron and air group. Hasse was a short, good-looking kid from South Dakota. He had been something of a ladies’ man, with a string of concurrent girlfriends back in the States.
Like most of the Tail End Charlies, Hasse had left a set of just-in-case instructions. If he didn’t make it back, his buddies were supposed to retrieve a pack of love letters from his personal effects and get rid of them. No need to break any more hearts than necessary.
And so they did. It took several more rounds of Coon Range and a few more toasts, then they gathered up the letters. In a solemn procession they made their way up to the darkened catwalk at the edge of the flight deck. The night sky was suitably black, without horizon or moonlight. Silently they tossed Al Hasse’s love letters over the rail, watching the fluttering paper vanish in the blackness of the Pacific.
Three days later they were on their way back to Kyushu. This time they were in the company of three other divisions, including Helldivers from the bombing squadron, VB-10, and Avengers from the torpedo squadron, VT-10, whom the other airmen called “Torpeckers.” The mission was to find the elusive Japanese fleet, which was reported to be assembling to engage the American invasion force at Okinawa.
Led by Hyland, the strike group swept over the designated place in the ocean off Kyushu. A low cloud cover obscured most of the area. They found no sign of the Japanese warships. Hyland then took them inland to their alternative targets, the airfields on Kyushu.
It was a replay of the first two days of strikes. Even though the fields had been hit multiple times, the antiaircraft fire was as intense as ever. Just as before, the Japanese gunners were filling the sky with black bursts of gunfire.
One after the other, the Corsairs rolled in, jinking and weaving, trying to elude the gunners while keeping their sights on the target. Erickson, in his usual slot as Hyland’s Tail End Charlie and Windy Hill’s wingman, was amazed that no one had been hit.
And then he saw that someone had. An ominous gray stream was spewing from the belly of the fighter directly ahead of him. “Windy, you’ve been hit!” he yelled on the radio.
Hill didn’t need to be told. He had felt the sharp thunk of the shrapnel hitting his airplane. Now he could see his fuel quantity indicator unwinding. He had to get the hell out of Japan, and he had to do it very quickly. During the past week’s operations, several Intrepid pilots had taken hits over Kyushu or Shikoku and been forced to ditch. They were all dead or captured.
Hill swung the nose of the Corsair back to the southeast. When the shoreline of Kyushu swept beneath him, he began to feel a tiny ray of optimism. He could see the open ocean ahead. Maybe he’d get far enough to be picked up by a friendly ship. Out the side of the canopy he glimpsed the dark blue shape of Erickson’s Corsair close to his starboard wing. He could see the worried look on Erickson’s face.
Hill took another glance at his fuel quantity. Almost zero. This wouldn’t be his first ditching. Back in his first combat tour in the Solomons, he’d put a Corsair down in the water, and he knew what it was like. It was a hell of a ride.
He called Erickson. “This is my last transmission. I’m depending on you to get someone here to rescue me.”
In the next moment, the Corsair’s engine coughed, stuttered, then went dead. Gliding toward the water, Hill slid his canopy back and locked it. Then, as an afterthought, he unbuckled his parachute. It would be easier to retrieve the one-man raft from the chute container if it was already released, he thought.
Hill aimed for a trough between the waves. The Corsair smacked down hard on its belly but didn’t flip over. With the nose tilting quickly below the surface, Hill struggled to haul the raft out. Too late, he realized that unhooking the parachute had been a serious mistake. The whole package, parachute and raft, had slid to the forward footwell of the cockpit, which was now under water.
Forget the raft. He was barely able to kick himself free of the cockpit before the Corsair sank beneath the waves. Inflating his life vest, Hill bobbed like a cork on the three-foot waves.
He gazed around. There was no sign of the Corsair, not even a bubble left on the surface. For the first time he realized it was cold. It was still winter in the northern Pacific, and he was freezing. It was then that the reality of his situation struck Hill like a thunderclap. Without a raft, he was going to die in this damned ocean.
Every strike briefing included a standard admonition about radio silence. You didn’t blab on the radio. You didn’t clutter the tactical frequency. You didn’t give the Japs a radio signal they could home in on.
Since their first mission together, Erickson and Hill had a private agreement. If one of them went down, to hell with radio silence—the other would get the word out.
Now Erickson was doing just that—filling the airwaves, making nonstop calls to other airplanes, submarines, carriers, anyone who could hear him. Beneath him, bobbing in a yellow life vest, was his best friend. Helplessly Erickson had watched Hill trying to pull out his raft. Now Hill looked like a speck in the ocean. Without a raft in the frigid water, he had a life expectancy of little more than an hour.
Erickson opened his canopy and tried to pull out his own raft to heave down to Hill. At six feet three inches, he was too tall. Each time he rose in the seat to reach the raft, the wind stream hit his head and shoulders and slammed him back down. He kept trying until he was exhausted. For a moment he considered ditching his own Corsair next to Hill so they could share his raft. Looking at the whitecaps on the surface, he decided it was a bad idea. They’d probably both wind up dead.
His own fuel was dangerously low. He waggled his wings one more time over the tiny figure in the water, then turned southward, back to the ship. By the time he was approaching Intrepid’s deck, he estimated that he had enough fuel left for one pass at the deck. He swept over the ramp and plunked down on the wooden deck, snagging a wire. He was still taxiing to the forward elevator when the engine sputtered and quit, out of fuel.
Minutes later Erickson was standing at attention in front of the air group commander. Hyland was livid. Erickson had jammed every goddamn radio circuit in the Fifth Fleet, alerting every submarine, ship, and airplane, and probably the Japs. What the hell had happened to radio discipline?
Erickson had no answer. This had been the worst day of his life. He’d just left his best friend to die in the ocean. He’d barely made it back to the carrier himself. Hyland, his air group commander and the father figure he revered more than any other human on earth, was furious with him.
Despite his best efforts to maintain a manly composure, he couldn’t hold back his emotions. The twenty-two-year-old fighter pilot burst into tears.
12 AND WHERE IS THE NAVY?
IMPERIAL PALACE, TOKYO
MARCH 29, 1945
The air raid sirens were wailing again. Ignoring them, Emperor Hirohito seated himself at the conference table in the shelter adjoining the imperial library. The sirens had become a fixture of life in Tokyo. Nearly three weeks before, on the night of March 10, 1945, American B-29s dropped incendiary bombs on the city. Nothing like it had been seen in history. Over a hundred thousand Japanese perished in the fires. More than a million were made homeless. Sixteen square miles of Japan’s capital were turned to charred rubble. The smoke and stench of the blazes still wafted through the Imperial Palace.
Now a month short of his forty-fourth birthday, Hirohito had reigned for nearly twenty years on the Chrysanthemum Throne. He was a fastidious, slightly built man who neither drank nor smoked. His reign was called “Showa,” meaning “radiating peace.”
How much longer the reign of Hirohito—o
r the Empire of Japan—might last was very much on the emperor’s mind. Another government was teetering on collapse. The previous prime minister, Gen. Hideki Tojo, had been removed in July 1944 after the defeat in the Philippine Sea and replaced with Gen. Kuniaki Koiso. Now Koiso was on his way out for the same reason: Japan had suffered calamitous setbacks at Leyte Gulf and Iwo Jima. The Allies were about to invade Okinawa.
The next government would be headed by a navy man, Admiral Kantaro Suzuki, with whom no one was pleased, including Hirohito and even the senior officers of the navy. Suzuki was eighty years old and more moderate than army militarists like Tojo and Koiso. The hard-liners were worried that the old admiral was inclined toward a negotiated peace with the Americans.
The militarists in the imperial government still held sway, just as they had when the decision was taken in 1941 to attack the United States. Never mind that their strident talk of bushido and imperial glory made them sound as if they’d come unhinged. No senior officer in either the Imperial Navy or Army was willing to speak what they all knew to be the truth: Japan had no chance of winning this war. To express such a thought was tantamount to treason. Even those who secretly favored a negotiated peace knew better than to reveal their feelings. That would make them a “Badoglio,” the detested Italian general and prime minister who surrendered his country to the Allies in 1943.
At the conference table with the emperor were his military advisors, the chiefs of staff of the army and the navy and their immediate subordinates. It was the role of Admiral Koshiro Oikawa, Imperial Japanese Navy chief of staff, to interface between His Divine Majesty and the Combined Fleet headquarters, whose commander in chief was Admiral Soemu Toyoda.
