Attack of the Seventh Carrier

by Peter Albano

  The storm had been a Dantean madhouse. Brent was still wet and shaken by it. When they had plunged into the first thunderhead it was like being trapped in the bowels of a ravening beast. Instantly, they were caught by the wall of a powerful updraft that hurled the big plane upward like a butterfly caught in a typhoon and he seemed to leave his guts behind. He had actually felt the aircraft flip over and over, and for a few unbelievable moments it seemed to windmill end over end. All was swirling gray and black making orientation impossible, the very pull of gravity that should have defined a simple up or down confused by vertigo like a mad carousel. And the rain was so thick it poured into his cockpit not in drops, but in a solid torrent, and he felt like a man caught beneath a dam that had suddenly collapsed.

  His senses had been overwhelmed. There were blinding flashes of lightning and thunder rolled and crashed painfully, assaulting his eardrums like heavy artillery. He was convinced he was a dead man and had already entered the gates of hell. Not even the greatest pilot on earth could manage the insane turbulence; updrafts, downdrafts, hail like frozen stones. But a caprice of the storm saved them. Hurled upward, downward, rolled and tumbled and then shot upward again by another freakish draft even more powerful than the first, the bomber exploded out of a cloud bank into brilliant clear sky. Brent was shocked to find the horizon vertical instead of horizontal and the wings still on the aircraft. Then as Takii regained control, the horizon rotated back down into its proper position. It was then that Brent realized he was completely disoriented and had even lost his feel for gravity.

  Thanking a variety of gods, they turned north and fled toward Tinian. Then they found Yoshi Matsuhara.

  Takii’s voice scratched tinnily, breaking into his consciousness. “You are wounded, Brent-san?”

  Brent turned his seat. Tried to maintain his watch, staring up and into the distance despite the pain that had even stiffened his neck. The pain was frustrating but even more disturbing was his inability to focus his eyes. He concentrated on a great cumulo-nimbus thunderhead hulking on the southern horizon, first wide-eyed and then through slitted lids, but found everything out of focus like looking through a gauzed lens used to film aging Hollywood glamour queens. He spoke into the intercom honestly. “I’ve been grazed across the chest — lost some blood.” He clenched his jaw, disliking the admission to follow: “I’m weak — may not be at top battle efficiency.”

  “Ammunition?”

  Brent had done a lot of firing and had been concerned. He looked down at the floorboards where the belt disappeared into the ammunition tank. “Maybe a hundred rounds.”

  Takii’s voice was heavy. “Ensign Hayusa has moved on.”

  “Yes. But I’m sure his karma was strong.”

  Takii looked skyward. “Life and death are part of the same whole. On the fortieth day he will be reborn on a higher plane.” The little man’s head came down and his eyes moved over the damaged wing. “Perhaps we will be close on Ensign Hayusa’s heels if that wing gives way.”

  “It’s taken a lot. We should’ve lost it in that storm.”

  Brent could hear the old pilot sigh. “Amaterasu had us in her grasp.”

  “Nakajima engineering helped, too,” Brent answered, staring at the hole. He could see the spars and braces, could see the aileron control wires moving as Takii worked the controls. A remarkable aircraft. He looked down at the sea. The Marianas had vanished and the storm was nothing but the tip of a dark toadstool protruding over the horizon. From a thousand feet, the five thousand fathoms of the Marianas Trench gave the sea a purple hue and the surface appeared crenulated by the chop, a swell spreading across it like ripples across a pond, from the disturbance in the south. Another thought disturbed Brent. “You can navigate us back to Yonaga, Ensign Takii?”

  The old man chuckled. “Of course, Lieutenant. My compass works, I have my charts and you know I have a small amount of experience.”

  “But if Yonaga changes course — speed…”

  “Then hope the commander still has his radio.” Takii jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the Zero which droned steadily above their tail.

  For over an hour, the two aircraft threshed through the empty sky. Brent examined his wounds as much as the tender flesh would permit. Apparently, the bullets that had ripped his flight clothes had also served to help staunch the bleeding, the cold air causing the flowing blood to coagulate quickly. But his muscles not only ached, but now he felt severe cramps in his shoulders, back, and neck. Nevertheless, he shook the gathering malaise from his head, forced his seat to rotate, and even raised his glasses in attempts to maintain his watch. But his glasses were heavy, his head doddering as if made of concrete and his eyes still refused to focus.

  Takii’s voice: “We are at twenty-three degrees of latitude, one hundred fifty eight degrees of longitude. We just crossed the Tropic of Cancer and should sight the carrier dead ahead soon.”

  “Good.”

  “And bad, Brent-san.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The north-easterlies are taking us by the head and we are low on fuel.”

  “You made my day,” the young American snickered to himself in a sudden giddiness that brought a wild burst of laughter and sent saliva streaking from his chin. He shook his head, rubbed the top of his head, and hunched over the breech. He knew he was close to slipping from consciousness, clenched his teeth until his jaw hurt and the cords of his neck bulged and the encroaching darkness pooled away to the outer bounds of his awareness. But he knew he could not keep the blackness away much longer — not by sheer willpower. He had lost too much blood. Now he could feel lumps of it like liver against his thighs, his buttocks, squishing under his legs when he moved.

  Takii shouting, “Ships! Ships! Three-four-zero” shocked Brent upright out of his lethargy. Forgetting his wounds, the weakness, he stared forward over the left wing. On the far horizon where the sea and sky met in a curving blue-gray line, he saw two white slashes in the sea. Eagerly he leaned into his glasses and brought first a graceful Fletcher class destroyer into focus and then another. Captain John “Clubber” Fite in the lead and far behind, another Fletcher protecting the still-invisible Yonaga’s side. Must be. Had to be it. He prayed. Felt joy when he finally recognized the Japanese battle ensign flying from both. Where was the CAP? If the carrier was nearby certainly her patrols would be sniffing them out. Then, looking around with the pain forgotten, he found them: three specks high in the pale, ethereal cobalt of the sky, swooping downward on him from the rear with the grace and precision of the Bolshoi. He stood, cheered, waved, and collapsed.

  Takii’s voice again. “Yonaga bearing three-three-zero.”

  It took a hard look to finally discern the great ship which was still “hulled down” by the curvature of the earth, only her soaring foretop, flag, and flight control bridge protruding above the horizon. But she was unmistakable. The director, foretop cluttered with antennas, elegantly curved upper works, single huge stack. Brent felt joy swell like a young wayward boy finally coming home after a long absence. “Home. Home,” he said to himself with disbelief, making levers of his elbows against the combing and forcing himself erect. In the battle and storm he had become convinced he would never see the great carrier again. But there she was with her gigantic thousand-foot flight deck now completely visible. Sighing, he sagged back.

  Takii’s voice: “Fire a single red flare, Brent-san.”

  Brent looked down at the floorboards. The flare gun had no handle and its barrel had been bent by an armor-piercing round. “Sorry, Yoshiro-san,” Brent answered. “My flare gun is junk.”

  Takii cursed artistically, unleashing his wrath on Daikoku and Ebisu, two minor gods whose lack of stature limited their powers of retaliation. Brent turned to Yoshi’s Zero, held up one hand over his head simulating a pistol, and snapped his thumb down as if firing it. Matsuhara looked puzzled. Leaning forward painfully, Brent picked up the pieces of the flare gun, held them up, and threw them over the side. He
repeated the pistol signal with his hand. This time Yoshi nodded understanding, reached down, and then held a flare gun high over his head. He fired a single red flare which arced high into the heavens leaving a smoking phosphorous trail behind.

  Takii spoke: “We are badly damaged — trim is hard to maintain, and our right tire has been shot out. I will fly over an escort and you can bail out. I will land alone.”

  “Sorry, Yoshiro-san, my chute is full of holes. We’ll ride her down together.”

  Takii said, “I could try a water landing, but the swell is large and you are wounded.”

  “I know.”

  “We will be forced to try for a deck landing and I have very poor control. We could crash into the stern or overshoot and…”

  “I know that, too, Yoshiro-san. I’m ready. I am flying with the finest pilot on earth and, anyway, we have no choice.”

  Takii muttered an oath and then spoke softly and Brent recognized a famous passage from the Hagakure: “It is a cleansing act to give one’s life for the Mikado. For a man to end his life in the cause of righteousness, there is no need to call on the rewards of death. All the gods of heaven will smile on him and his tributes will come in abundance.” He paused, resumed with a strong, hoarse voice Brent had never heard before. “You are a fine samurai, Brent-san. It has been my gain to know you. I cannot find a better man to die with. Ensign Hayusa is waiting at the gates to Yasakuni for us and, perhaps, if the gods will it, we will all join hands and enter together.”

  Brent spoke softly. “I could not improve on the company, Yoshiro-san.”

  “Banzai! Banzai!” Takii shouted. Without hesitation, the American answered the salute with his own Banzai! The old man hunched over the controls with new determination.

  Staring over the damaged wing, Brent could see the carrier clearly, only a few miles to the northeast. Responding to the distress signal, she was curving into the wind and there was frantic activity on her flight deck; yellow-, red-, green-, and brown-clad handlers and deckhands rushing in every direction like a colorful upturned ants’ nest. Beginning the first leg of his approach, Takii slowly flew the start of a great ellipse, paralleling the starboard side of the leviathan and passing her. Looking down with a new energy, Brent could see aircrews releasing a half-dozen ready Zeros secured amidships from their tie-downs and manhandling them toward the forward elevator while a pair of new fire trucks equipped with the smothering American foam raced from their compartments just abaft the superstructure. Crews swarmed amidships, cranking up the fearsome steel-mesh barrier designed to halt any errant aircraft that failed to hook one of the five cables with its arresting gear. A high-speed collision with the barrier could crush an aircraft like a swatted fly, and several aircrewmen had been killed when they overflew the cables. Brent felt a tremor watching white-clad hospital orderlies with stretchers and kits over their shoulders run to their positions just abaft the island and next to a cluster of twenty-five-millimeter gun tubs.

  Despite his wounds, despite his weakness that fogged his mind and cramped his muscles until they ached, and despite the mortal danger about to be challenged, Brent still felt a stir of the old pride, the awe always inspired by the sight of the noble gray juggernaut powering her way through the swells. Displacing eighty-two thousand tons, Yonaga slashed through the sea, leaving a widening white wake to the horizon. Her six escorts, all Fletchers, had assumed standard steaming stations; one directly ahead, two off each side covering her quarters and one astern on lifeguard station. The small narrow escorts gave the carrier a regal aspect — a daimyo with an entourage of fawning courtiers.

  Circling across her bows and beginning their run down her port side, Brent could see the entire vessel: the great rectangular flight deck longer than three football fields; 186 twenty-five-millimeter AA machine guns in triple mounts and 32 dual-purpose five-inch guns pointed skyward from her galleries and superstructure like stands of saplings and young trees; the island reaching into the sky like a steel Everest with its tiered flag bridge, navigation bridge, flight control bridge all topped by the gun director and radar antennas like perforated dishes and bent colanders; the huge stack bedecked with rows of life rafts and a pair of searchlight platforms; the aft director, crane, and more antennas and the stern with the flight deck overhang almost concealing the four twenty-five-millimeter mounts in a pair of tubs. The entire sweep of the graceful hull revealed her battleship genesis, the 406 millimeter armor belt protruding just above the waterline like a ridge on the side of a gray cliff. “A Yamato, bigger and faster than her sisters, Yamato, Musashi, and Shinana,” her old officers had told him pridefully, over and over again.

  “She has two-blocked ‘Pennant Two,’” Yoshiro Takii said. “They are ready to receive us.” Brent glanced at the signal bridge, found the bright blue pennant with the white dot whipping from a halyard. “Are you strong enough to secure your Nambu and check your canopy lock, Brent-san?”

  “Affirmative,” Brent said, not sure he was telling the truth. Slowly he brought himself into a crouch, lowered the machine gun, and locked it into its well. The pain was excruciating, spinning his head. Then, while Takii banked into the final leg of his approach, the young American turned and faced forward. The canopy had been shattered by gunfire and the lock appeared damaged. Wracked by pain he tried to stand, sank back, and tried again. Finally, with Yonaga’s deck looming close, he leaned forward and grasped the lock. Either it was jammed or he was too weak to turn it. Despairing, he sank back and almost whispered in his microphone, “Nambu secured, canopy lock is jammed.”

  “Very well. Brace yourself. Here we go, Brent-san,” Takii shouted into his microphone.

  The deck was very close and jutted toward them like a steel shelf while beneath their belly the chop skimmed by like sharks’ teeth. Brent felt jolts as the landing gear locked down and the tail hook was extended. Surprisingly, the beat of the engine did not drop, Takii, forced by the damage and lack of trim, to maintain more throttle than usual. They were high enough, but the speed of the B5N was far too fast. Takii would be landing out of trim, with one wheel damaged and at a high speed.

  “Pray to your Judaic-Christian God — I will call on Buddha and my Shinto kami,” Takii grunted breathlessly. Brent glanced skyward but knew not even a platoon of gods could land the wreck he was riding.

  Suddenly, the bomber dropped. They were below the flight deck and headed for the twenty-five-millimeter mounts. Panicked gunners scrambled. More power. The nose came up and the deck was obscured by the wings. Abruptly, the nose dropped and the flight deck was beneath them. Glass glinted on the bridge, men were staring down while other fearful faces stared up from the galleries, catwalks, and deck. The landing operations officer was waving them off, his fans gyrating frantically like a pair of yellow windmills.

  Brent heard Takii scream, “Out of the way, fools!”

  At a hundred-ten knots, thirty knots above designed landing speed, Tora II made her final lunge, tilting to the left as Takii cut the switch and crossed his controls, bringing the right wheel high, trying to land on his left wheel. A jarring thud as the left wheel struck the deck, a report like a gunshot as the tire burst followed by sudden deceleration and Brent was flung forward against his harness as the hook caught. But the speed was too high and the cable snapped, whipping steel strands to port and starboard, the end of one catching a handler at the waist and severing his torso neatly. His legs were sent flying into a gun tub while his head and chest were lashed over the side, trailing viscera and blood.

  There was no time to react, to think. Brent, weak and numbed by fear, clung to his hand grips, jerked from side to side by the forces ripping Tora II. Free of the cable, the bomber accelerated, nose pointed at the sky but hurled down the deck almost horizontally at the barrier like a wounded gull looking for a perch, tail dragging across the deck, hook broken and useless.

  The Nakajima caught the top of the steel mesh with its left wheel faring at least a hundred knots. The wheels, oleo legs, retractio
n mechanisms, and brake lines spewing red hydraulic fluid were ripped free as if gripped by the hand of a giant and the aircraft flipped up and over the barrier, smashing down on her propeller and skidded along the starboard side of the deck like an injured dog rubbing its nose in the grass.

  The horizon revolved and there was the scream of tortured aluminum, crashing, banging, ripping as the bomber flipped completely over, shedding both wings and spilling high-test gasoline behind. Screaming, Brent pulled down his head like a frightened turtle, trying to make an accordion of his neck and make himself smaller, sheltering himself against his headrest and the fuselage decking which screeched like an animal in a steel trap as it scraped across the deck only inches from the top of his head, leaving a trail of ripped teakwood, sparks, and splinters.

  The plane bounced off the island, pounding Brent’s head against the coaming. Black drapes swung across his consciousness, gongs and drums crashed, thundered, and reverberated in his head. Meteors and comets flashed and suddenly it all ended. There was a sweet silence and he sagged, upside-down, held by his harness above the deck. So this was death — complete relaxation — peace. He let his arms hang over his head. Then he smelled the gasoline.

  There was a whoosh like a balloon deflating and he smelled smoke. Fire! Cold, paralyzing fear coursed through him as if icicles had replaced his blood. He was alive, but the greatest fear was there — death by burning. He tried to release his harness, but his arms were lead and his nose and mouth were filled with blood. He felt heat and flames raced beneath him. He would be broiled alive. He screamed again and again. There were shouts. Then the bomber rocked and he heard a hissing. White foam sloshed through the gasoline and then there was the sound of ripping metal as the jaws of a huge cutter slashed through the aluminum of his cockpit. Suddenly, strong hands gripped his shoulders while others released his harness lock and he felt himself slide down and slip into the foam. As he was pulled across the deck, a tranquil darkness closed about him.