by Herman Wouk
“Where are we going? Any word on that?”
“I’m not sure. I think we reverse course again in the morning, so as to give air cover to Midway at dawn. By then, naturally, those yellow monkeys will be halfway back to Japan.”
Warren yawned, picked up a sandwich from a piled tray, and lounged in the chair beside Goff. He was disappointed, but obscurely relieved, too. “Well, we did get the carriers. Maybe he wants to quit while he’s ahead. That’s not bad poker.”
“Warren, he’s blowing our chance to destroy the Jap fleet.”
Warren was too weary to waste words with the youngster. “Look, maybe they’ll still try to take Midway tomorrow. Then it’ll be another big day. Better catch some shut-eye.”
“Warren, what did it really feel like, getting that bomb in there?” Rubbing his bushy beard, Pete Goff callowly, awkwardly grinned. “I missed twice, by a country mile.”
“Oh, it was a great feeling. Absolutely great. Nothing like it.” Warren yawned and stretched. “However, Pete, I’ll tell you something. On that long flight back, I got to thinking about all those Japs burning up, and their bodies flying around, and those planes going up like firecrackers, and that magnificent ship all wrecked up and frying and drowning everybody. Then I thought we get paid for doing some strange work in this fucking Navy.”
The day broke cloudy. There was no dawn search, and so no daylight attack. At sunrise the task force was plowing through iron-gray swells at a sedate fifteen knots. No air operations whatever had been ordered. On the hangar deck the clang and shriek of all-night airplane repair still echoed. In the ready rooms a slump was taking hold. The edgy aviators, having breakfasted at 3 A.M., were waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen. By ten the sun was breaking through. Still no orders came. There were no alarms. Except for the turns into the wind to launch and recover the overhead combat patrol, it was like peacetime steaming. The mutterings mounted that the admiral had let the Japs escape.
Meantime, the teletype burbled conflicting news.
Midway search planes had found the fourth carrier, smoking but still afloat, and under way.
No, that had actually been a fifth carrier, which Army B-17S had hit.
No, the fourth carrier had disappeared.
No, the Japanese fleet was splitting up, one force heading west toward Japan, the other withdrawing northwest with a smoking carrier.
The positions jumped about on the chart and made no sense. A feeling spread among the pilots that, after a glorious first day, something was going very, very wrong “up there.”
In fact, Rear Admiral Spruance and Halsey’s staff were at loggerheads.
To the staff officers, Raymond Spruance was still the screen OTC who by a fluke had been thrust into command of a battle that Halsey should have fought. The Old Man had assured them of Spruance’s rare brilliance, but the night retreat had badly shaken them. Put to the test, he seemed to be muffing a historic victory.
Spruance for his part was losing confidence in them. He had assumed that they would execute combat operations with seasoned skill, but in reality this was their first battle. Until now, Vice Admiral Halsey had led only hit-and-run raids on atolls. The laggard first launch, the wrong estimate of the enemy’s movements, the miscalculating of Point Option, had been disheartening bungles. The heavy damaging of four enemy carriers (for Spruance still had no confirmed news of sinkings) was a great result; but fuel exhaustion had put down more American aircraft than the enemy had done. Three torpedo squadrons had gone unescorted to the slaughter. The Hornet aviators, except for the suicidal Torpedo Eight, had entirely missed the battle. This was wretched work. Then in the second strike, the staff had — unbelievably — failed to notify the unlucky Hornet of the attack order, hence their tardy, useless flight.
Now the staff, still surly over the retreat at night, wanted to steam after the enemy at full speed, and launch search-and-attack sweeps at once, clouds or no clouds. But Spruance would not leave Midway unguarded until he knew the Japanese were out of air strike range; and he was keeping back his surviving machines and aviators for direct attacks, based on hard knowledge of where the foe was. This was the impasse in flag country. The restless aviators in the ready room, because their necks were at stake, quite accurately surmised that something was rotten “up there.”
It was past one o’clock when orders at last came down. The fleet was speeding up to twenty-five knots. The squadrons would chase the Jap formation reported retreating with a “smoking carrier.” The Dauntlesses were to sally forth on the cold trail, make a wide search, and hit anything they found; returning before dark, because they had not drilled in night landings. Glances soon began to pass among the pilots, as they plotted the orders on their flight charts. A peculiar silence fell.
Warren Henry was called to Earl Gallaher’s stateroom. Pallid and weary, Wade McClusky sat in Gallaher’s armchair, his khaki blouse bulging over bandages. Gallaher, chewing on a cold cigar, closed the door. “Had a chance to plot out the new attack plan, Warren?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you make of it?”
“It’s a plan for a swimming meet.”
Wade McClusky, his face scored with worry lines, put in, “You know Spruance, don’t you?”
“My father does, sir.”
“That’ll do.” McClusky pushed himself up. “Let’s go talk to the CO.”
The captain of the Enterprise was waiting for them at his desk, in a large office bright with sunshine through open portholes. McClusky briskly stated the problem, asking him to intervene with Browning, and if necessary with Spruance. The captain stared at him, slowly nodding, his fingers idly expanding and contracting a thick rubber band. He was in an unenviable spot, squeezed between his aviators and his admiral’s staff. “Well, okay, Wade,” he said with a sigh that came out a groan. “I’m assuming you can use dividers and add. Maybe somebody on the staff can’t. Let’s go up to the flag shelter.”
Perched on Halsey’s favorite stool, Captain Miles Browning was looking over a large chart of the attack plan. For the first time since Halsey had left the ship, the chief of staff was happy. The admiral had been stalling and stalling, waiting for word of a definite enemy sighting from the Midway search planes. At last, in exasperation, Browning had pointed out that sunsets do not wait; that if they did not launch soon, a whole day of battle would pass without aggressive action; and that might take explaining soon in Pearl Harbor, not to mention Washington.
Quite casually, as though permitting an extra liberty for all hands, Spruance had thrown in the towel. “Very well, Captain. Prepare and execute an attack plan.”
This chart was the result. Rapidly whipped up by the staff, beautifully drafted in blue and orange ink, it called for a majestic sweep of the widening triangle of ocean where the fleeing Nips might still be found. The area had fanned out like all hell with the passing hours, of course. If only Spruance had listened sooner! Yet the boys might still catch the Japs. Rear Admiral Spruance stood on the platform outside, elbows on the bulwark, watching the spotting of planes for the launch. At least the man did not resent being overborne. In his quiet way Spruance was even more stubborn than Halsey, but once he gave in he bore no grudge. Browning had to grant him that.
Trampling feet mounted the ladder, and the three aviators entered the shelter, led by the ship’s captain. McClusky flatly told Miles Browning that the attack plan would splash every dive-bomber left on the Enterprise. Even with five-hundred-pound bombs, the distance, time, and fuel factors did not add up, yet the plan called for thousand-pound bombs. Nor was there any margin for gas consumption in combat. Mildly the ship’s captain suggested that the staff might recheck the plan.
Browning retorted that there was nothing to recheck. The plan was an order. Let the fliers watch fuel economy and not botch their navigation, and there would be no splashes. Sharpening his tone in return, McClusky declared that if it meant a court-martial he would not take his air group out on those orders.
Both men began shouting.
Rear Admiral Spruance strolled in and asked what the matter was. First Browning, then McClusky angrily put their cases. With a glance at the chronometer Spruance sat down in the armchair, scratching at his hairy face. Not to shave in combat was a Halsey staff custom, and he was conforming, though with his starched spotless khakis and gleaming black shoes the brown and gray bristles looked decidedly odd.
“Lieutenant Henry, you’ve been given your orders!” Spruance surprised them all by bursting out at Warren in a harsh grating voice, with a furious look. “What the devil does this temerity mean? What’s your problem? Do you suppose the staff hasn’t worked out this plan with the greatest care?”
Under Spruance’s icy ugly stare, Warren spoke up shakily. “Admiral, the staff doesn’t fly.”
“That’s an insubordinate response! Wouldn’t your father in your place just carry out his orders? Just get in his plane and do as he’d been told?”
“Yes, Admiral, he would. But if asked — as you’re asking me, sir — he’d mention that you wouldn’t see any of your aircraft again. Because you won’t.”
Pursing his broad well-cut lips, his large sober eyes glancing around at the others, Spruance rubbed his chin, then clasped his hands behind his head. “Well,” he said, turning to Wade McClusky, “I’ll do what you pilots want.”
“What!” The word broke from Browning like the cry of a stabbed man. He dashed his cap to the deck, stamped scarlet-faced out of the flag shelter, and his rapid steps thumped down the ladder. The cap rolled to the feet of Spruance, who picked it up and put it on the chair arm, saying placidly, “Call the operations officer, Wade.”
In thickening weather, the dive-bomber squadrons finally left the Enterprise and the Hornet at three in the afternoon, on a modified plan. They saw only white clouds and gray patches of water in their wide sweep. Returning in a scarlet-flaring sunset, they came upon a lone Japanese destroyer and pounced on it. The vessel dodged and twisted under the hail of bombs, vomiting red AA tracers, even shooting down one plane, until darkness forced the air group commander to let it go unscathed. As the Dauntlesses roared off through the fast Ming night, homing on the Y-E signal, Warren wondered how the hell they would get back aboard. He stewed too about his own gross miss on this destroyer, and on the failure of an entire squadron to get even one hit.
On the Enterprise, Browning had thought better of his tantrum, and had returned to the shelter in a calm professional mood. Spruance’s manner to him was as pleasant as always. As night fell and McClusky reported the search group on the way back, Spruance took to pacing like Halsey, for the first time in the battle. Both men strode here and there in the gloom until Browning burst out, “Admiral, we’ve got to turn on the lights.”
The dim form of Spruance halted. “What about submarines?”
“Sir, we have a screen out there. If a son-of-a-bitching sub has. gotten through the screen, that’s too bad. The boys have to land.”
“Thank you, Captain Browning. I agree. Illuminate at once.”
In after years, in one of his rare specific statements on his war conduct; Raymond Spruance declared that he was concerned only once in the war, and that was when the planes were returning in the dark off Midway.
So to Warren’s amazed relief, a white blaze suddenly starred the dark sea far ahead. The carriers stood out like perfect little ship models. The operations officer came on the radio with emergency instructions. Warily, nervously, the pilots came in for the first carrier night landings of their lives. The brilliant searchlight illumination made it seem a sort of circus stunt. Warren was surprised at how simple it actually was. He slammed down and caught the number two cable in the glare as though it were noon sunshine; then he hurried to the landing officer’s platform to watch the other planes come in. The instant the last bomber touched down — with only one dropped in the sea, and its men handily rescued by the plane guard destroyer — the lights went out.
Ships, planes disappeared. The night sky leaped into view.
“What do you know?” Warren said to the landing officer. “Stars.”
On the Northampton’s blacked-out bridge, Victor Henry happily told the exec to secure from General Quarters. The astonishing blaze-up, while forcing the cruiser on immediate submarine alert, had lifted a load from his heart. Pug didn’t believe that the one unlucky plane had been Warren’s. He sensed too that this spectacular night recovery was the real end of the battle. There might be mopping up of stragglers for a day or two, but the Japs were gone. Spruance would not follow them far. The screen destroyers were getting near their fuel limits, and in these waters he could not leave them behind. Pug had followed Spruance’s maneuvers with intense if frustrated admiration. The withdrawal on the first night, and the cautious pursuit tactics, had secured a substantial victory against the Japanese powerhouse. He had socked them and rocked them, and not lost his shirt.
Now, standing out on the wing of his bridge under the stars, Pug Henry allowed himself to think about Warren again. This two-day vigil had aged him; he could feel it in his nerves, in his very breathing. On that fearful first morning a Bible verse had kept running through his mind, a verse over which he had once broken down, reading the Bible with his family long ago. Each morning a member of the family had taken a turn at a chapter, and the last battle of David and Absalom had fallen to him.
“O my son, Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absabm, my son, my son!”
Under the bright solemn eyes of the three children he had choked over the verse, slammed the book shut, and hurried from the room. Yesterday morning, as his agonized father-feeling had welled up, those words had repeated and repeated in his brain like a torturing old song; and like a smashed record, it had stopped at the sight of Warren’s Dauntless flashing over the forecastle. Ever since, Pug had shut out thoughts of his endangered son, almost as he blocked away the hurtful remembrance of his faithless wife. He had even forced himself to stop watching the air operations on the En- terprise. Warren’s second pass yesterday had been reassuring. Yet Pug knew he would not draw an easy breath until he saw his son again in Pearl Harbor. He was not absolutely sure that Warren was alive, and there was no seemly way of finding out. But the big risks were past, and now there was only the waiting.
Victor Henry thought he was not likely ever to endure a more harrowing time than these two days of futile steaming in command of a major warship with silent guns, while his son fought a battle at the highest hazard, as it were before his eyes.
In the flag shelter, the atmosphere had calmed. When Spruance set the pursuit speed for the night at a mere fifteen knots, there was no argument. He and the chief of staff now understood each other. Browning wanted hot pursuit at reckless fuel cost; oilers were bringing up the rear, in case fuel ran low. Spruance was conserving fuel for possible extended combat with no chance for refueling. The verdict between them now lay with their superiors and with history.
Early next morning an urgent Nimitz dispatch gave Miles Browning a sweet foretaste of that verdict, for Cincpac agreed with him. He hastened to deliver the message himself to Spruance, who was brewing coffee in his quarters before dawn. Nimitz said in the dispatch that the sole survivor of Torpedo Eight had been rescued, and had confirmed great damage to three Jap carriers. The time therefore was ripe to close the enemy and attack. Both men understood the veiled language of high command dispatches. This was a rough rebuke for excessive caution, and a warning of possible responsibility for letting a wounded enemy escape. The report of the rescued pilot was padding.
Calmly initialling the flimsy sheet, Spruance inquired, “What have you done about this?”
“Our dawn search is ready to launch, Admiral. The Hornet’s bombers are standing by, armed with thousand-pound bombs, ready to attack at contact.”
“Excellent.” It was a word Spruance had rarely used. “Have the cruiser float planes follow up any sighting, Captain, and keep the enemy in view.”
Warren put himself on the dawn search. Weary though he was, flying was pleasanter than fretting in the ready room. The starlit launch, the long flight in the dawn and the sunrise, gave him a sort of second wind. He saw nothing, but he heard Peter Goff radio a long excited report from the southern sector. Two large vessels, cruisers or battleships, had apparently collided in the night. They were moving slowly in a gigantic oil slick, screened by destroyers, and the bow of one appeared to be crushed. Poor Pete, flying without a bomb over a couple of huge unmaneuverable cripples! This would be the great chance for the Hornet bombers to improve their sad score. Approaching the screen on his return, he dropped once more to fly over the Northampton, and saw his father on the bridge nonchalantly wave. The Hornet bombers were already taking off.
In the Enterprise ready room, the fliers listened avidly to the jocular, occasionally obscene radio exchanges pouring from the loudspeaker as the Hornet planes found the two cripples and plastered them with half-ton bomb hits. When the attack ended, the patrolling cruiser plane reported the ships appallingly battered and on fire, but still under way at dead slow. The teletype, turning playful in the sunshine of victory, spelled out:
LOOKS LIKE MORE TARGET PRACTICE FOR ENTERPRISE
At this, Ensign Goff let out a rebel yell that raised a wave of guffaws, and some headshakes among the slumping red-eyed pilots.
“Well, Pete, here’s your moment,” Warren tiredly grinned. “Just lay it in there this time, nice and easy.”
His face set and pale, Pete Goff said, “I’ll put it down the smokestack.”
As they were leaving the ready room, Warren tapped Goff’s shoulder. “Look, Pete, belay that down-the-smokestack stuff. It’s just another bombing run. You’ll get a hundred more chances in this war.”