Back at the Akagi, Fuchida’s engineer, Kanegasaki with the others in the empty hangar section stood below a P.A. speaker listening keenly: “Attention, attention: Commander Fuchida has reported back from Hawaii the following message ... ‘Tiger, tiger, tiger!’” The crew of the entire ship burst into ecstatic cheers and shouts of euphoria.
In his office at the Imperial Palace, Emperor Hirohito, somewhat bleary eyed having stayed up anxiously through the night, sat upright at his desk with four other nervous and tired officials seated in his office of red velvet and wooden chairs. A messenger came to the door, bowed, and entered. “Your majesty, we have just received this communication from the combined fleet.” He stepped to the Emperor’s desk and held out a note in outstretched arms with his head bowed.
The Emperor took the note gingerly, apprehensively scanned his eyes over the message, sighed, nodded, and smiled. “Commander Fuchida sends this message.” He paused for effect. “‘Tiger, tiger, tiger.’”
The officials beamed with relief and vigorously shook each other’s hands.
Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii.
3:18 a.m. Japanese Standard Time, December 8.
7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time, December 7.
Fuchida brought his group into their bombing run toward battleship row and watched as dive bombers fell from the sky onto Hickam Field, the Army air base near the mouth of Pearl Harbor, dropping their payload onto tightly packed groups of parked aircraft. Zero fighters tore through the rows of planes in a spectacular display of explosions and flames. He knew that this was perhaps the most crucial part of their plan, for if Hickam’s B-17s and P-40s manage to take to the air and follow the Japanese back to their own fleet it could prove disastrous.
Closing into the harbor like predators stalking their unaware prey, Fuchida watched the torpedo bombers make their final approaches, each pilot on his own highly planned course. As the drone of the engines approached the idle ships, torpedoes splashed into the ocean and swam silently to their targets as the next planes fell into position behind them. Dozens of torpedoes sped toward the moored ships.
Two half-dressed American sailors at the rail of the battleship USS West Virginia stared in amazement. “What the hell?!” Two massive concussions exploded columns of water a hundred feet into the air.
A rapid succession of blasts rocked battleship after battleship, one after another, which began filling the air with thick plumes of black smoke. Antiaircraft fire began to pock the sky with black smoke blossoms as waves of Val dive bombers screamed down on the fleet, releasing their 250 pound payloads with merciless precision.
Fuchida looked down through binoculars assessing the organized chaos while his pilot took a pass over the ship they were targeting. He cursed under his breath. He could see no carriers, which was just as their last report had indicated, and was forced to release his distant hope. Just as he finished counting the seven battleships in the harbor, an antiaircraft shell exploded on their left violently shaking their plane. His pilot, Lieutenant Matsuzuki, checked his instruments and spoke to Fuchida through the speaker tube hanging from his neck, “Don’t worry about that. We’re all right, sir.” A second shell burst even closer on the right, convulsing the plane and sending bits of shrapnel through the aircraft.
Everything having gone so well so far, Fuchida wanted to get on with their business and hopefully make it back to their carrier alive. “Let’s get a good sighting, drop this bomb, then circle out wider,” he ordered. The pilot nodded and started his level bombing run over the battleships as Fuchida’s group of five bombers formed into their tight “V” formation, just like they’d practiced dozens of times before. Taking aim through his bombsight at his target through the growing clouds of smoke, he waited until the exact moment, then released his 1,760 pound armor-piercing bomb onto USS Maryland below. With the many planes dropping so many bombs, he couldn’t tell which of the planes in his group hit the target; but could see two explosions on the ship below and knew their group had accomplished their goal.
His plane shuddered violently from another hellacious explosion, this one from the harbor far below. As he looked down, a phenomenal red fireball shrouded in smoke rose hundreds of feet skyward from a battleship. He grinned and nodded. It was the tell-tale mark of a direct hit on the powder magazine.7 His airmen were performing terrifically, and the Americans were foolish to leave their fleet completely unprotected.
Fuchida’s plane banked away as he stared at the ships below, collapsing into the water under a heavy veil of smoke. The mission was unfolding as an astounding success. His heart blazed with joy.
10:50 a.m. Pacific Time, McChord Field, Tacoma, Washington.
An olive-green fuel truck rumbled past an open hangar housing four B-17 bombers. Inside the mess hall kitchen, Jake sat peeling potatoes huddled with five others in white aprons, listening to the Giants-Dodgers football game booming over the radio.
“Are you crazy?” Jake said. “Tuffy Leemans is a freight train when they hand him the ball. He’s gonna take the Giants to the playoffs – again.” Jake lobbed his peeled potato into an aluminum tub and grabbed another.
“The Giants didn’t make the playoffs last year, idiot,” another piped in. “Tuffy couldn’t pull a caboose compared to Pug Manders, Brooklyn’s two-time Pro Bowl fullback who averaged over forty yards a game!”
“Wise guy,” Jake answered. “The Giants made the playoffs in ’38 and ’39, and Tuffy’s averaging forty-seven yards a game. And you probably didn’t know that today, today, is ‘Tuffy Leemans Day’ at the ball park. You got a ‘Pug Manders Day’? No, of course you don’t!”
The crew stopped at the sound of a commotion rumbling from behind a pair of double doors, which burst open as airmen flew in. “The Japs hit Pearl! The Japs just bombed Pearl Harbor! They’re all over Hawaii!”
Jake leapt up and hurled a potato against the wall. “You Jap bastards are gonna pay for this! No one does that to the U.S.A. and gets away with it! No one!”
2: 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Keuka College outside Rochester, New York.
An American flag flapped atop the flagpole over the vacant college campus. In a small staff break room, female students and teachers packed together and overflowed into the hallway listening frozen to a radio report. Some stifled sobs and held handkerchiefs to their faces.
Peggy listened stoically near the window. She had long feared and half-expected to hear something like this.
The radio announcer continued: “There’s chaos on Oahu and great loss of life as information continues to come in on the Japanese attack. The American fleet at Pearl Harbor is completely engulfed in smoke and flames and there are now reports of a full scale invasion by the Japanese. American troops are being put on alert as ...”
“Oh God! Oh God, no!” one of the girls blurted out as she broke down in uncontrollable sobs.
Peggy turned to the window as a chill shot over her skin. She stared out and spoke under her breath, “Dad ...” The Japanese would be coming to the Philippines.
Chapter 28
Just past noon, the aircraft carrier Akagi.
Fuchida’s plane touched down into the arresting cables and jolted to a stop, the very last plane back from both attack waves. Fuchida had taken it on himself to make sure no stragglers were left behind and the skies were clear. Genda approached the plane as Fuchida struggled out and stretched his arms and legs, then dropped to the deck.
“How many did we lose?” Fuchida asked.
“Still waiting on the other reports, but it looks to be about thirty.”
Fuchida paused, wondering which of his men were killed, then loosened the hachimaki from his head, pulled off his sweaty cap and goggles, and began unbuckling his parachute harness as they walked toward the tower. “That’s it. I’m the last one.”
In front of a briefing room full of exhausted airmen, Fuchida carefully drew marks of hits on a blackboard showing the harbor. Ships were labeled A, B, C and so on with long arrows showing torpedo
strikes with X’s marking aerial bombing hits. Fuchida looked over his shoulder. “Shirikata?”
A pilot stood up and smartly bowed his head. “Sir. Successful torpedo strike on Colorado class battleship, position D.”
As Fuchida chalked a line up to the ship, Kanegasaki, Fuchida’s mechanic, appeared at the doorway wiping grease from his hands and gave a quick bow. “Please excuse me, commander, but I thought you should see this. It’s important.”
Slightly perturbed, Fuchida glanced up at Kanegasaki, then turned to the pilots. “Remain as you are. I will return shortly.” He followed his engineer down the stairs to the upper flight deck where mechanics and engineers were making quick repairs and rearming and refueling the aircraft. In the event the fleet came under attack or if the American carriers were found close enough for a strike, they had to be ready. Fuchida didn’t like being taken away in the middle of debriefing, but knew his personal engineer wouldn’t have called him for something insignificant.
Kanegasaki ran his hand over the wing of Fuchida’s plane, then pressed his fingers into a hole. “Here are the hits from the antiaircraft fire that struck your plane with shrapnel. If any had struck your fuel tank, of course, you wouldn’t be standing here. I counted twenty-one holes from the American flak, including this ...” He leaned down and lifted a small hatch revealing a half-frayed control cable in the fuselage, barely hanging by a thread and tugged it with his finger. “Your elevator cable.”
Fuchida knew that the loss of it would have resulted in the immediate destruction of his aircraft.
Kanegasaki stood upright and looked soberly at Fuchida for a moment, then broke into a smile. “Commander, the gods smile on you ...”
Chapter 29
December 7, three hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, McChord Field, Tacoma, Washington.
Jake clenched the phone to his face inside the glass and wood phone booth, one of many along a wall in a room packed with cursing soldiers. With one hand covering his ear he shouted into the receiver, “I’m telling you, ma, those ... I said I’m telling you, those little Japs are gonna wish they’d never done what they did!”
Jake’s mom stood in the kitchen in her apron, smudges of flour on her face and hands, clenching the phone with both hands. Helen winced as Mr. Andrus watched and listened with his arms folded. “Now son, we’re all upset about this, but you mustn’t –”
“Don’t tell me. Let’s see, God tells us to forgive our enemies, but he burns all his up! Do I have it right, Ma?! Well, do I?!”
Jake’s mother looked over to her husband. She spoke gently but firmly. “Well son, you know I’m all right with war. After all, David killed Goliath, but hatred ... well, hatred will ...”
“As far as I’m concerned, I’d be happy if we wiped every last Jap off the face of the earth! They want a fight? Well, now they got one!” Jake slammed the receiver down and struggled to push the folding glass door open as another fuming soldier squeezed to get in.
Five hours after the attack, Central Philippines University.
Jimmy stood in Frank’s office in his bare feet – his shirt half untucked and his hair a bit wild. The sun was peeking over the mountains through the windows. “There’s nothing as stupid as war!” He jerked his head around and paced to the wall and back. “Well, we shouldn’t let this setback change what we need to do here. At all. I say we stay the course and keep classes open. If the Japanese invade, MacArthur’ll push ‘em back off the islands, and then we can get on with business.”
“Well ...” Frank stood up from his desk, walked over to a globe, and gave it a light spin. “We’ll give it a try and see how things go.”
“The territory of Hawaii? Pearl Harbor?! What were they thinking?” Jimmy squinted into the unwelcome daylight.
“Listen, Jimmy, I’ll do what I can to run the university ‘business as usual,’ but you need to be ready for anything.”
Jimmy turned back as the globe slowly come to a stop, then rested his hand on it like the head of child and spoke softer. “I just can’t believe they’ve done this.”
Six hours after the attack, Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong.
One after another, thirty-four Ki-32 light bombers released their explosives onto the British aircraft below, obliterating the few planes were on the ground, followed by Ki-97 fighters who decimated what was left in an endless barrage of bullets. On the outskirts of the city, 40,000 Japanese troops with heavy artillery amassed to overwhelm the island city.
Six hours after the attack, Tokyo, Japan.
Kneeling beside a radio on a low table, Fuchida’s wife, Haruko, and their two children listened to the announcement: “... being forced to cross swords with the Americans against our will, our airmen made a daring attack this morning in a dazzling victory for his majesty the Emperor. In our efforts to stabilize East Asia and to defend our empire against Western aggression, our warriors ...”
“Children, they’re talking about your father. He is a great man.” Yoshiya, their son of eight, looked up to his mother and smiled.
Eight hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Clark Air Base, about forty miles northwest of Manila, Philippines.
“Hey, not so fast. One American cigarette equals three Filipino cigarettes – or vice versa, get it? You calling or raising?”
Under the shade of an enormous hangar, three aircraft mechanics played a fast game of poker on shipping crates while finishing ham sandwiches and Coca-Cola. The smooth harmonies of Chattanooga Choo Choo echoed over the radio. Behind them, engineers wheeled bombs under the open bomb bay doors of two B-17s.
The first mechanic studied his hand and raised an eyebrow to a second who rolled his eyes. The first pushed in six Filipino cigarettes. “I’m seeing ya.”
Beside the runway outside, a pilot sat eating a sandwich in the cockpit of his parked fighter. The base was surrounded by open fields of razor-sharp cogon grass and housed a row of hangars, home to twenty-four P-40 fighters, ten B-18 medium bombers, and nineteen B-17 heavy bombers. The base was on alert and every aircraft was getting fueled up and loaded with weapons for a counterstrike on Formosa,8 occupied by Japan and a key base for several divisions of attack aircraft.
One of the engineers behind the poker players in the hangar yelled out, “Hey, we ain’t got all day! We got some special delivery for the Japs coming up! You better be ready!”
“Yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on!” The first player snapped his hand of cards shut and grabbed a swig of Coke.
Midway through the song an announcer broke in over the radio: “We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this bulletin. Japanese bombers have been sighted attacking Clark Air Base. I repeat, Japanese bombers have ...”
“Hey, fellas! That’s us!” the second player blurted out.
The first player discarded as the third player dealt him two cards without a flinch.
“Hey genius, if we were under attack, don’t you think we’d know about it?! We’ve got a hundred and fifty thousand boots on the ground and bases loaded with bombers. The Japs aren’t so stupid that ...”
Everyone in the hangar froze and looked up as they began to hear the distant whistling of falling bombs. Outside, the air raid siren began to howl. The plane behind them exploded with a thunderous blast.
A succession of bombs burst down the runway and hangars, shaking the ground with bone rattling concussions, blowing parked planes to bits and igniting a fuel depot into an inferno of flames. Men scattered across the taxiways and grass shoulders, diving into ditches as forty-six Type 96 twin engine bombers pounded the base and thirty-four “Zero” fighters followed by strafing the leftovers.
A few soldiers on the ground struggled to load antiaircraft guns, none of which had ever been fired before or even tested.
Prepared for a tough fight, the Japanese never imagined such a pathetic lack of opposition.
Chapter 30
December 10, 1941. The Imperial Palace.
Wearing a dark gray overcoat in the cool morning, Emperor Hi
rohito moved along slowly on a covered wooden walkway observing his gardens, his hands behind his back.
An attendant in black, a few steps behind, read to him the morning paper. “The Hawaiian debacle and the sweeping victories being scored by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy forces on all fronts have swept away a good deal of the braggadocio spirit of the American people. Only a few weeks ago they were boasting that the United States could finish off Japan in three months.”
The Emperor stopped, reached for a branch and bent it down, snapping off a small, dead twig.
“Today these same Americans are trembling in their shoes, and they have every reason for doing so. The British will soon be cursing Roosevelt as ‘That blasted idiot.’ We hate to think what his own people will be calling the ‘Would-be Lord High Protector of the Universe’ when they awaken to the full realization of what he got them into. Once the boast of America and the envy of decrepit Britannia, the Pacific fleet has vanished from the seas while only a few battered hulks remain. With her battle fleet annihilated in the most humiliating disaster in all history, the United States has been reduced at one stroke to a third-rate naval power.” The attendant folded the paper to display a political cartoon and bowed, handing it with both hands to the Emperor.
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