The Final Storm

by Jeff Shaara

  Truman sat with the ship’s senior officers, the lunch the usual fare for senior naval personnel, something Truman had come to enjoy.

  “I do not understand the British. How on earth they could pull the rug out from under the man who … well, in my opinion anyway, has to be the greatest statesman alive on this planet … well, I do not understand. But that’s why we have elections, and there are many in Washington who are certainly anticipating that once my inherited term has expired, the rug in my case shall be thin indeed.”

  The others smiled, polite as always, not even the ship’s captain intruding onto Truman’s conversation except by invitation. He had become a little annoyed by that, did not want to be treated as royalty, not by men he had hoped would accept him as more down-to-earth than his predecessor. The eating continued, no one responding, and Truman tasted the soup again, thought, I suppose they have no choice. I’m the damn boss, and military men respect that more than anyone.

  The door to the captain’s mess was pulled open by a young security officer, and Truman saw his map room officer, Captain Frank Graham, slip quickly into the room.

  “Sir, all apologies for interrupting your lunch. I thought you should see this as quickly as possible.”

  “Let’s have it, Frank.”

  Graham handed the paper to Truman, who read it silently, then sat back, felt a burst of energy, looked at the faces, the officers trying not to appear too curious.

  “Gentlemen, you will hear greater details of this soon enough. Allow me to be the first to inform you. Probably appropriate that way. ‘Following info regarding Manhattan received. Hiroshima bombed visually’… well, a lot of technical details after that. ‘No fighter opposition and no flak. Results clear cut successful in all respects. Visible effects greater than in any test. Condition normal in airplane following delivery.’ ” He paused, saw puzzled looks, polite nods. “Gentlemen, you are being let in on the greatest secret this nation has ever hoped to keep. The shorthand version of this is that we have bombed the Japanese city of Hiroshima with a weapon unlike any the world has ever seen. No need for secrets now. I expect this will bring the Japanese to the peace table as quickly as they can button their trousers. Simply put, gentlemen, this is the greatest thing in history. Captain, with all respect, it’s time for you to get us home.”

  The Potsdam Declaration had been specific and direct, had called for the Japanese to surrender or else face the most dire of consequences. The clauses included assurances that the Allies had every intention of destroying Japan’s ability to make war. In addition there were specifics regarding boundaries of what would remain of Japanese territory, and those foreign lands Japan would no longer occupy. The Japanese would be expected to submit their military leaders for trial as war criminals, to answer for the astonishing variety and volume of barbarism that even now were coming to light. The declaration had been very specific that the Allies had no intention of enslaving or even punishing the Japanese people. There were also clauses allowing for Japanese industry to be supported in efforts to restore a healthy peacetime economy, and that a more democratic Japan, with freedoms of religion and speech, would be welcomed into the greater world community. Once the new Japanese government had taken hold, the declaration had promised that the military occupation of Japan by the Allies would end. But it was the final clause that Truman knew would have been pushed hard by Roosevelt, and thus Truman felt strongly he should press it as well:

  We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.

  The word of the destruction of Hiroshima was spreading with lightning speed through every world capital, carried on airwaves that sent Truman’s announcement to every world leader. The success of the Enola Gay’s mission was now a dramatic and forceful punctuation mark to the resolution agreed upon at Potsdam, a resolution that Truman and Churchill hoped would convince the Japanese that there was no reason whatsoever for continuing the war. If the Japanese leaders were truly aware of their military situation, they had to know that sending their people into combat was fruitless at best. Now, with the explosion of the atomic bomb, Truman expected that the ultimatum issued at Potsdam would crush Japanese resolve, and that finally, even their most militant generals could be made to see that the war was truly over. Prior to Hiroshima, none of the Allied powers had received any direct communications from the Japanese, nothing to show that the Imperial High Command actually believed the threat the Allies were making. On the contrary, the Japanese response had consisted of the indirect broadcast of an address by the Japanese prime minister, Kantaro Suzuki, which used the word mokusatsu. Those in the West who studied Japanese culture knew the term to mean silent contempt, as though the Japanese hierarchy considered the Potsdam Declaration and the final ultimatum to be beneath the dignity of any response at all. Truman was aware that the declaration had not made specific mention of what should become of the emperor, a technicality that might cause some problems for a culture that the Americans truly couldn’t relate to. But the concept of utter destruction had no hidden meaning in any culture. Now, with that promise fulfilled at Hiroshima, Truman felt confident that the Japanese understood quite clearly that the Americans possessed a new and horrifying weapon, and would use it with ruthless intent. But Truman was amazed that, even with the obliteration of most of Hiroshima, the Japanese government still did not respond at all.

  On August 7 and 8, as though to emphasize that the Americans had more on their minds than a single weapon, a force of nearly five hundred B-29s made bombing raids both day and night on a considerable number of Japanese targets. With maddening silence still from the Japanese, Truman exercised his authority, and gave final agreement to the requests from Leslie Groves and Robert Oppenheimer, as well as the American military commanders who still faced the horrifying prospect of invading mainland Japan. The physicists and technicians of the Manhattan Project had thus far created a total of three atomic bombs. Little Boy, the bomb Colonel Tibbets had dropped on Hiroshima, had been a uranium device, fired with the least complicated form of ignition, the cannon projectile system. But both of the other bombs, including the test bomb exploded at Alamogordo, were altogether different. Those used plutonium, rather than uranium, and were ignited by an implosion method, where masses of plutonium would be fired simultaneously from multiple directions into a core of the material at the center of the bomb, causing the collision of a sufficient amount of nuclear material to create a nuclear explosion. Though more complicated than the Hiroshima weapon, the success at Alamogordo had convinced Groves and his teams that this plutonium bomb was just as reliable. The last remaining bomb was named Fat Man, its shape far more spherical than the bomb Tibbets had dropped. It was slightly larger and slightly more powerful than Little Boy, but its effects would be the same. On August 9, three days after the destruction of Hiroshima, and with no indication coming from the Japanese that they had any intention of accepting the Potsdam Declaration, Fat Man was loaded aboard the B-29 Bockscar. The plane was piloted by Major Charles Sweeney, who had piloted one of the support planes for Tibbets’s Hiroshima mission. After struggling through deteriorating weather conditions over Japan, the primary target of Kokura was abandoned, and Sweeney flew his plane to the secondary target, the city of Nagasaki. With weather conditions threatening to scrub the mission altogether, Sweeney used radar as well as a chance visual through thickening clouds, and at 11:01 A.M., the second atomic bomb was exploded over a Japanese city.

  Throughout the early days of August, the Japanese had been making entreaties directly to the Soviets, requests of influence that Stalin might exercise to bring an end to the war that would help the Japanese save face, by ensuring that the Americans did not tamper with the existing structure of the Japanese government, and that the tone of the Potsdam Declaration be modified to allow for the emperor to remain the spiritual and p
olitical leader of his people. Though Truman had pushed hard for the Soviets to enter the war against Japan, Stalin had resisted any such pressure. With the dropping of the second bomb, Stalin had a sudden change of heart. To the shock of the Japanese diplomats in Moscow, on August 9, the same day the city of Nagasaki was destroyed, the Soviets declared war on Japan. In what seemed to be mere minutes, Soviet troops that were poised on the border with China swarmed into Manchuria and immediately began to engage the highly overmatched Japanese forces there, sweeping them away with the same dedicated viciousness the Allies had witnessed in Germany.

  Truman received news of the second bomb with the same optimism he had felt after the success at Hiroshima. The next day, August 10, that optimism was justified, though not as directly or as succinctly as Truman had expected. A message emerged from the Japanese government, delivered through intermediaries, the Swiss and the Swedes:

  In obedience to the gracious commands of His Majesty the Emperor, who, ever anxious to enhance the cause of world peace, desires earnestly to bring about an early termination of hostilities with a view to saving mankind from the calamities to be imposed on them by further continuation of the war, the Japanese government several weeks ago asked the Soviet government, with which neutral relations then prevailed, to render good offices in restoring peace vis-à-vis the enemy powers. Unfortunately, these efforts in the interest of peace having failed, the Japanese government, in conformity with the august wish of His Majesty to restore the general peace and desiring to put an end to the untold sufferings engendered by the war, have decided on the following:

  The Japanese government is ready to accept the terms enumerated in the joint declaration that was issued at Potsdam, July 26, 1945, by the heads of government of the United States, Great Britain and China, and later subscribed to by the Soviet government, with the understanding that said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler. The Japanese government hopes sincerely that this understanding is warranted and desires keenly that an explicit indication to that effect will be speedily forthcoming.

  Truman realized that the Japanese were balancing their conditions solely on the survival of their emperor and his full authority over the Japanese people. After consultations with his own cabinet and military leaders, Truman accepted the Japanese terms, so long as the Japanese government abided specifically by the Potsdam Declaration. The one fly in the ointment came from the Soviets, who, since they were now officially one of the combatants, added a last-second clause in the agreement that the Japanese would have to formally surrender to a representative of both the American and Soviet governments, as though to symbolize that victory had been achieved by the blood and toil of both nations equally. The maneuver was blatantly transparent, since Soviet troops were already galloping through Manchuria with virtually no opposition, seizing territory that Truman knew would be as impossible to pry loose from Stalin’s hands as the territories he now controlled in Eastern Europe. Truman’s response was definite and negative, though of course the language that was transmitted to the Soviets was couched in diplomatic niceties. Privately Truman had his own description of Stalin’s ploy. After only one day’s participation in the war against an enemy that for fifteen years had brutalized and massacred their way through Asia and the Pacific, Stalin expected to become a full partner in the spoils. Truman’s response, stripped of its diplomacy, was a firm rebuke, otherwise best stated as “nice try.”

  OVAL OFFICE, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  AUGUST 14, 1945, 7 P.M.

  Most of his cabinet was in place, the members of the press corps squeezing in as best they could. Truman waited patiently behind his desk, would allow the microphones to be placed correctly, checked and double-checked, wanted no one left out. To one side he saw Bess, nervous, looked at her with a smile, a small nod, tried to reassure her with a gentle gesture, thought, she’s as nervous as I am, and I’m about to drill myself through this floor. Don’t show it though. This is one of those, well … perfect moments.

  The room seemed to settle down, the guards at the door motioning to him that no one remained outside. He stood now, saw his wife jump, flinching, and he smiled again, tried to calm her from the short distance between them, but there was no time now for levity.

  “I should like to read to you a message received this afternoon from the Japanese government in reply to the message forwarded to that government by the secretary of state on August eleventh. I deem this reply a full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration which specifies the unconditional surrender of Japan.”

  There was much more, but through the room he could already feel the surge of energy, the thought flickering through him once more. Yes, a perfect moment. The war is over.

  33. ADAMS

  TRAIN STATION, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

  AUGUST 14, 1945

  The train rolled slowly to a stop, the hard squeal of steel beneath him, the cars now jerking to a halt. Around him people began to rise, a burst of movement, suitcases pulled down from shelves above, a hum of activity surrounding him, keeping him pressed to the seat. He felt self-conscious about the uniform, had seen the looks, the attention of the other passengers, the long journey from San Diego seeming to take an eternity. There had been some attempts at conversation, the men mostly, curious, probing him in that carefree way, as though being male gave them some sense of sharing, that his experience was a part of their own, no matter that they had spent the war as civilians.

  There had been other troops on the train as well, one sailor, who stayed to himself, two army officers, who ignored this young Marine completely, who spoke with a little too much brashness, attracting attention by the jauntiness of their caps. No matter where they had served, Adams knew it had been nowhere close to a fight.

  The women had stayed quiet, one in particular, older, deep sad eyes, and he had avoided her, felt the attention coming from her as though she needed something from him, something too uncomfortable for him to offer. After so many hours it had come to him, a flash of understanding, that she had suffered a deep and tragic loss. He would not ask, would avoid speaking to her at all, and she had not tried to break that shield. But more than once he had seen her face cupped by a handkerchief, her grief ripped bare to the passengers around her. He finally understood she was reacting to his uniform. He felt some kind of responsibility, a flicker of guilt, had thought of talking to her. But his shield was solid and immovable, and no matter what inspired her tears, he could do nothing to take away her pain without bringing on his own horrific memories. Even in the crowded car he fought to keep their voices far away. He had no interest in eavesdropping on the trivial, someone’s details of a trip to the doctor, a sister’s wedding, all the while the older men seeking out some kind of story from him, something they could pass on to someone else, party conversation, chatter in a bar. Hey, I met this Marine … a hero … medals.

  Even as he deflected their conversation, the question had come to him. What must they hear? Why do they care what I went through, how many dead men I saw, how many Japs I killed? This war wasn’t for anyone’s entertainment, for God’s sake.

  He had heard about the military hospital, a visit by the movie star John Wayne. It was pure Hollywood, some press agent’s good idea that the star saunter into a ward of badly injured men in full Western regalia, as though by Wayne’s heroic presence, a pair of six-shooters and jingling spurs, he would brighten the mood of broken and bloodied men. The response had shocked even the doctors, the wounded troops greeting this big-time star with a chorus of boos and catcalls. If I had been there, I would have done the same thing, he thought. Blood is not ketchup, a friend’s death is not about dragging tears from the girl in the front row. Those wounded men are changed for all time, and some fake hero isn’t going to erase anything they did, or bring back anyone they lost.

  Adams stood, the crowd in the aisles thinning out, gathering outside on the concrete platform. He felt strangely ne
rvous, reached for his seabag, would never look at the heavy green canvas without thinking of Guam.

  The Marines had been sent there from Okinawa, mostly to rest and refit, and Adams had witnessed a scene that had stunned him. Massive piles of the green duffel bags, what the sailors and Marines called seabags, had been tossed into a pile, doused with gasoline, and set on fire. There had been only one explanation. Those bags, and all they contained, had belonged to the men killed in action. According to some rule Adams would never understand, the seabags were simply burned. He had watched the pyre with a sickening sense of loss, had been forced to think of Welty and Ferucci and everyone else, wondering if their possessions were in that fire, wondering if someone had had the decency to sort through, to send home anything that the family might treasure. He did not stay there long enough to find out, knew only that his own bag contained no treasures at all. The only souvenirs he carried would not catch anyone’s attention. He still had the single can of Welty’s stew, and with that, the shattered eyeglasses that his friend had worn. He had no explanation for it, but Adams had seen the blackest pieces of his own heart, knew with perfect certainty that if anyone tried to take those from him, he would have killed them with his hands.

  Soon after reaching Guam, the veterans had been given the astounding luxury of a thirty-day leave. Adams had absorbed that news with decidedly mixed feelings, but it had been Sergeant Mortensen who had kicked him hard in the ass, a dressing down about feeling sorry for himself. There was family, after all, all of them had somebody, and Mortensen wouldn’t hear excuses from anyone lucky enough to get a leave. The Marines were offered a ship to San Diego and a train ticket to anywhere beyond, with enough time to make the visit worthwhile. Mortensen was not about to let any one of his veterans pass that by, especially since, in a platoon of fifty men, Adams was one of only six who had been with the unit since the invasion of Okinawa. The faces of the veterans were familiar, but no one was close, pure chance that any cluster of friends had long been shattered by the brutality of the fights. New friendships seemed nonexistent, the other veterans seeming to stay away from anyone else, just as he did. The replacements were learning quickly to keep their mouths shut, too many broken teeth pounded into the mouths of idiot recruits who did what they always did, asking for advice, or even more stupid, digging the veterans for some tale about the great adventure of combat. Adams had been lucky, so far. None of the new men on Guam had approached him, not even the tough guys, who heard talk of his reputation with the boxing gloves. There was something dangerous in the veterans now, deep beneath the calm and the distant stare. Even the captain had let him be, no suggestion that Adams should participate in the never-ending rituals of the boxing matches. For Adams those days were past, no desire in him at all to break another jawbone. That need had been fulfilled for the last time by a Japanese soldier on Sugar Loaf Hill.