On Seas So Crimson

by James Young

  Well that’s certainly a charitable way to look at things, Greenman thought angrily.

  CINCPACFLT looked at the clock.

  “Vice Admiral Bowles, send the signal to all vessels that we will complete assembly at Point Falcon no later than 0800. Please inform our friends over at Schofield Barracks of our plan, and that we would appreciate it if they would start their searches in a timely manner,” Jensen ordered.

  “Aye aye, sir,” Bowles said.

  “This staff will conduct a briefing for all squadron and division commanders in here at 0900,”Jensen said. He looked pointedly at Captain Greenman.

  “It would behoove you to have a better idea of what the Hell is going on,” Jensen snapped. “You ask ONI some questions, come back and tell Vice Admiral Bowles who told you no. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Captain Greenman replied stiffly.

  “Good,” Jensen replied. “I’d hate to have to make you swim back here.”

  The man’s tone made it clear that the quip was not an offhand joke.

  I don’t intend to be working on my breaststroke anytime soon, Greenman thought angrily.

  CHAPTER 7: WAR

  War! That mad game the world so loves to play—Jonathan Swift

  Opana Radar Station

  0630 Local (1140 Eastern)

  27 March 1943

  “Corporal, I have a blip!” Private First Class David Jessup intoned breathlessly. Barely eighteen years old, Pfc. Jessup’s freckles and short brown hair made him look like an escaped extra from Our Gang more than an Army private.

  Corporal Joseph Lockard exhaled wearily. Slender, brown haired, handsome, and just a few months past twenty years of age, Lockard was the NCOIC of the Opana Radar Station.

  The worst part about training the newbies is that they get excited about everything, Lockard. As one of the first soldiers trained on the use of radar in Hawaii, Lockard knew the rush that came from finally getting a contact after several hours spent gazing into the green screens. Almost eighteen months of service had taught him that the initial rush of excitement was usually better tempered with a heavy dose of caution.

  All of us being out here on alert for two hours probably hasn’t helped matters any, Lockard thought.

  “Make that two blips,” Jessup said excitedly.

  Well now that is somewhat more uncommon, Lockard thought. But not completely unheard of. After a couple of civilian aircraft had completely vanished, instructors taking pilots out for navigational training had started flying in pairs if they were going on a particularly long flight.

  Pays to have someone who can at least tell the authorities where to start looking, Lockard thought grimly.

  “Today would be the day some idiots decide to go out on a pleasure flight,” he muttered. “Stupid tour guides probably don’t even realize there’s a war on.”

  “Should we call headquarters, corporal?” Jessup asked.

  “For two planes? Who do you think we are, the Navy?” Lockard asked derisively. “HQ’s already gone back to Condition Yellow from Red. I doubt General Short will change his mind based on two blips, and I don’t intend to explain to a three star why we got everyone spun up again. Let me see what you’ve got.”

  Coming over to the screen, Lockard took a long look.

  “Okay, of your two contacts, one is heading north at roughly two hundred knots,” Lockard said. “I don’t think the Japanese have a seaplane base at Barber’s point, do you?”

  “No Corporal,” Jessup said sheepishly.

  “Now that other aircraft winging south is a bit odd…wait, now it’s turning further west and out to sea,” Lockard said.

  The corporal looked at his watch, then did some quick math.

  “Probably that search plane we were told launched before dawn,” Lockard said finally. “Keep an eye on it, but I don’t think one plane is going to do that much damage.”

  “Roger, Corporal Lockard,” Jessup replied, his voice dejected.

  The three-man crew of Tone’s No. 6 scout had no idea how close Death had come to joining them on their flight. Even if they had, it was doubtful they would have cared. The three men were dedicated, and they also knew that they were running low on time. The Kido Butai’s first strike was already airborne, and they had roughly another hour to find the American fleet before they had to turn back. Continuing their southwesterly course, all three men continued to strain for some sign of smoke as the sun cracked the eastern horizon.

  U.S.S. Saratoga

  0640 Local (1140 Eastern)

  It was a beautiful dawn, the sky shot through with beautiful colors. Standing on the carrier Saratoga’s deck next to his fighter, Peter Byrnes had a moment to enjoy the sight as the carrier began coming around into the wind.

  “You going to keep looking at the sights or get in your bird, Byrnes?!” Lieutenant Commander Donald A. Lovelace, VF-3’s executive officer and his section leader, shouted. Shaking himself out of it, Peter climbed up on the Wildcat’s wing and into the cockpit. Quickly strapping in with the help of his grinning crew chief, Peter quickly checked over his switches and chute.

  Hopefully I won’t need this, Peter thought. Indeed, it’d be nice if I was back in time to make my date with Patricia. While he’d been torn between Patricia and Jo with which one he wanted to ask out, getting Sam and David’s tacit blessing the night before while at the latter’s house had made up his mind.

  I’m sure she’ll understand if I’m a bit delayed, however, Peter thought, running up his engine. He’d been slightly surprised that the Saratoga was launching her first combat air patrol so late, but rumor had it that Admiral Fletcher had wanted to stagger the fighters so that he could maintain a constant, strong patrol.

  Fool’s errand for everyone involved, methinks, Peter thought. We’re a long way from Tokyo. At least I get to fly. Fletcher, much to the scout pilots’ chagrin, had opted to rely on land based reconnaissance in order to maximize his striking power. With the exception of the four SBD’s spotted aft for anti-submarine searches, neither the dive bombers or torpedo pilots would get to fly that day.

  “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” Peter muttered, as the first VF-3’s fighters lifted off the Saratoga’s deck. Peter watched as the tubby plane jerkily climbed, its pilot cranking up the Wildcat’s gear by hand. Quicker than usual, the next two Wildcats launched, leaving him in the slot to take off down the teak deck. As the launch officer dropped to his knees and pointed forward, Peter shoved the throttle to the firewall and accelerated down the deck. As he floated off the end of the Saratoga’s bow, he reached down and began furiously cranking his own wheels up.

  This is the worst part of the flight, Peter thought as he gave the bar the requisite number of turns plus an extra to make sure the gear was truly locked. Mess it up and not only do you get a nice bruise on your leg, but there’s a decent chance you’ll end up in the drink.

  Putting the fighter into a gentle port bank, Peter took a chance to look around. Ten miles away, he could see the battleline steaming ahead with the Arizona followed by her sister ship, Pennsylvania, then the Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee, California, Maryland, West Virginia, and Colorado. Combined together, these ships were the most powerful battleline in existence in the world, bar none.

  It would be nice if the Japanese did come this way, Peter thought with a smile. Maybe end the war in a day with those guns and our carriers. Looking further to the south as he came around, he could see the Lexington and Yorktown roughly fifteen miles away from the Saratoga and each other. The two vessels were coming into the wind to launch their anti-submarine aircraft, their CAP of fourteen F4F Wildcats already airborne.

  Even with three carriers, we can’t keep this large a CAP airborne for long, Peter thought. Be nice if the Army boys would give us some help here soon.

  Kido Butai Strike Force

  0645 Local (1145 Eastern)

  It is a glorious dawn, Isoro thought as he looked around him with a sense of awe. Below him, the fighter squa
drons of the Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu were stretched back in a massive V of vees, each individual chutai maintaining perfect formation as they weaved protectively over their charges.

  Ninety-six Zeroes, Isoro thought with pride. They cleared the air over Chungking with less than twenty back in ’41. At an altitude only slightly below that of the fighters were the one hundred and eight dive-bombers of the 1st and 3rd Carrier Divisions. Despite the loss of two of their number, one to ditching and another due to engine failure on the flight deck, enough dive-bombers remained to easily suppress the anti-aircraft fire of the American fleet. Lastly, forty-five torpedo bombers, each armed with a long, cigar-shaped aerial torpedo underneath their fuselage, constituted the main effort of the Kido Butai’s first strike .

  Turning back forward, Isoro felt an ever greater sense of strength as he looked over the rest of Akagi’s fighter squadron.

  Hopefully we can also seize control of the air with our nine Shiden, Isoro thought. Once the position of the enemy fleet was received, it was the mission of the Akagi’s fighters to fly ahead and engage the enemy CAP. The fighters from the other three carriers would then arrive with the remainder of the strike with an altitude advantage over any scrambling Americans, in addition to being well-placed to engage any Army fighters attempting to interfere from Hawaii.

  We are lucky that Admiral Yamaguchi now commands us, Isoro thought to himself. I doubt Admiral Nagumo would have been as daring. He also would have doubted our ability to seriously damage the battleships at sea. Allegedly Admiral Nagumo, having just returned from Germany on 1 March, had publicly decried Yamaguchi’s plan as far too dangerous. The rumor had allegedly led to several of the torpedo pilots pasting a photo of the Kido Butai’s commander to their forward windshields so that he could see the destruction they were going to wreak first hand.

  I can understand their annoyance, but perchance Commander Fuchida having his crew chief paint the admiral’s visage on the front of his torpedo was a bit much, Isoro thought. We are samurai, and such an insult is beneath us. Looking at his watch, Isoro narrowed his eyes in worry.

  The scout plane needs to hurry up and do its job, he thought. I am ready to make an acquaintance with my American friends.

  Apparently Lieutenant Commander Itaya had the same thought. With a waggle of his wings, the Akagi’s fighter leader began to climb and accelerate. Isoro advanced his own throttle to follow.

  U.S.S. Arizona

  0700 Local (1200 Eastern)

  “Sir, Atlanta reports a radar contact, range forty thousand yards, altitude approximately eight thousand feet,” the talker at the back of Arizona’s flag bridge stated.

  Captain Greenman whipped his head around from where he had been reaching for a glass of water. At the front of the bridge, Admiral Jensen turned towards the talker whose report had cut him off mid-sentence while talking to the staff. That a petty officer would dare to interrupt him was beyond his comprehension.

  “I assume that the Atlanta has reported this to the Lexington, correct?” Jensen inquired icily, his tone indicating that the man had better know the answer to his question.

  “Yes, sir,” the petty officer replied.

  See if he tells you anything else, you arrogant bastard, Greenman thought disgustedly.

  “Then do not interrupt me again, understood?” Jensen replied, steel in his voice.

  “Yes, sir,” the petty officer replied.

  “Starboard!”

  The single shouted word from the pilot of Tone No. 6 brought the observer’s eyes to the right side of the aircraft. Straining his eyes towards the horizon, the Japanese lieutenant saw the smoke. Bringing up his binoculars, he quickly fixed on the ends of the smoke trails. Like small water bugs on a massive puddle, the ships causing the smudges quickly sprang into view even as the pilot began a shallow turn to bring the vessels closer. Swinging from right to left, the observer quickly classified the ships by size.

  “Eight battleships! This is the entire fleet!” the observer shouted. He put the binoculars down and got ready to jot down his contact report. As he grabbed his pencil, the world suddenly tilted to the left.

  “Fighters to starboard!” both the pilot and the rear gunner sang out simultaneously. Looking back in the direction of the enemy fleet, the observer could see the four small dots in the sky. As the observer watched, the aircraft began to get larger.

  We are all dead, the man thought grimly. With its two floats underneath and the single machine gun in the rear gunner’s cockpit, there was no chance of either outrunning or outfighting the enemy fighters. With their nearest help over an hour away, there was nothing that they could do if they were unable to evade. Quickly, the man began typing out what would probably be his last transmission.

  Scarlet Two

  0710 Local (1210 Eastern)

  “Bogey, eleven o’clock low!” Peter barked, seeing the glint of cockpit glass far below the Wildcat.

  Lovelace should have trusted the vector, he thought to himself. The Lexington’s fighter direction officer (FDO) was notorious for giving bad altitude readings. All three carriers’ fighter pilots had simply started adding five to ten thousand feet to any headings the man gave them.

  “Got it,” Lieutenant Commander Lovelace replied evenly. “Byrnes, let’s go see who in the hell this is.”

  “Roger,” Peter replied, bunting his nose forward to follow his leader down. Both men shoved their throttles forward to pick up speed as they finished a broad turn that brought them over and behind the olive green bogey.

  I hope this isn’t some dumb sports plane out on a lark, Byrnes thought to himself. He wasn’t sure if the civilian authorities had grounded all aircraft given Germany and Japan’s declaration of war. Even if they had, Peter knew how Hawaii’s civilian populace worked.

  If this is some pilot taking his kids out so they can see what the fleet looks like, I hope they take his license away, Peter thought. It’s one thing to do that during peacetime, but there’s a war on.

  As they closed, the outline of the aircraft became clearer. The twin pontoon floats underneath obviously identified it as a floatplane. While uncommon, Peter knew that there were at least two or three amphibians that regularly flew tour groups from Oahu. As the two Wildcats closed from behind, the float plane pilot put his nose down and started to dive towards the water.

  Well, you wanted to get a look at the Navy, Peter thought. Now you’re about to get to see a very close one…

  The burst of machine gun fire could not have surprised them more if it had been a lightning bolt from heaven. Stunned, neither Peter nor Lieutenant Commander Lovelace took evasive action as the gunner quickly corrected his aim and fired again. The long ribbon of tracers intersected with Lovelace’s cockpit, smashing through the canopy glass from the front quarter and taking the top off the man’s head. With horrible fascination, Peter watched as the other Wildcat porpoised upward, then suddenly twisted and fell off to starboard in a tightening spiral.

  Holy fuck! Peter thought, his mind in a haze.

  “Scarlet Two, break!”

  The shouted radio call brought a Pavlovian reaction from Peter that saved his life. Still in shock, Byrnes watched as bullets seemed to zip by his aircraft, the sound of bullets striking the fuselage and wings as he turned acting like a cold bucket of water to the face. Reaching down, he pulled the charging handled for the F4F-3’s four .50-caliber machine guns, diving down then bringing his nose back up in a short zoom climb as he tracked the turning floatplane. Rolling the fighter, he dived down from the port side in an almost full deflection shot as he fired a snap burst.

  The crew of Tone No. 6 never had a chance, the four streams of half-inch bullets chewing through aluminum, men, fuel, and control surfaces with ridiculous ease. With a bright puff of orange, the Aichi burst into flames and smoke. Letting off of the trigger, Byrnes watched as a man stood up out of the inferno, jumping over the mortally wounded airplane’s side towards the Pacific below. Following the plane down with his eyes, Byrne
s watched as the Aichi exploded well above the water. The lone crewman continued to plummet, hitting the unforgiving Pacific with a small splash.

  Hope you rot in Hell, you bastards, Peter thought fiercely.

  “Scarlet One, Scarlet One, this is Scarlet Base. Report current status!” a frantic voice asked. After a moment, Peter realized it was the Saratoga’s radioman.

  “Scarlet Base, Scarlet Base, this is Scarlet Two,” Peter intoned angrily into the microphone. “Scarlet One is down, no chute.”

  There was dead silence at the other end of the radio as the import of what he had said sank in. Looking down at his hands, Byrnes realized that both of them were uncontrollably shaking.

  “Sweet Jesus,” he muttered. “Guess I might be late for that date after all.”

  U.S.S. Arizona

  0720 Local (1220 Eastern)

  Aboard the Arizona, chaos was ensuing.

  “I want more fighters launched immediately,” Admiral Jensen roared. “I also want a message sent to General Short inquiring as to why my fighters are having to defend my fleet when we are still within the Army’s area of responsibility?!”

  Captain Greenman felt as if he’d had ashes poured into his mouth as he watched the Pacific Fleet’s staff dashing to carry out CINCPACFLT’s orders. It did not take long for the moment he dreaded to come.

  “Captain Greenman, how do you explain this?!” Admiral Jensen asked archly, the tone of his voice clearly indicating the explanation had better be a good one.

  Ever since the crazy message had been relayed from the Saratoga, Greenman had been trying to figure out a possible explanation himself.

  “Sir, there are three possibilities, and I will cover them from most to least likely,” he began calmly. “First, there is the possibility that Japanese fifth columnists have obtained control of an aircraft and flown out to determine the location of our fleet. Since we will have to wait until Sara’s fighters land to get a full description of the aircraft, if this is the case we will have to wait a few hours to investigate it.”