The Silver Waterfall

by Kevin Miller

  A minute passed. No answer. Was he hearing things? Did the CO mean to use the interphone with Dobbs?

  “You’re going in the wrong direction for the Japanese carrier force.”

  That was the skipper! Evans grasped. No doubt. On the radio, and for every ensign and radioman to hear. For the Japanese to hear. A new and terse voice answered: Sea Hag.

  “I’m leading this flight!” Ring barked. “You fly on us right here!”

  Evans and the rest of the formation pilots exchanged glances. Next to him, Hal repressed a grin, and Moose was indifferent. Evans, however, was shocked. Is this how commanders talk to each other?

  “I know where the damn Jap fleet is,” Waldron answered, defiant.

  Evans couldn’t believe his ears as he watched Waldron transmit, practically barking the words as his head moved with emphasis. Holding his position on the CO, he took peeks at the vee high above. A seething Sea Hag answered.

  “You fly on us! I’m leading this formation. You fly on us!”

  Above them, the giant formation continued on, as did Torpedo Eight on the surface. All the pilots and gunners, except Waldron, were astonished by the very public argument. Evans held his breath and imagined that everyone on the net was holding theirs, too. The profane backtalk was too incredible, too unfathomable to comprehend. Evans searched his memory. Had he ever heard of public arguing with a coach over a play selection? A professor over a letter grade? A supervisor over work assignments? What did this mean? What was going on between these two men?

  A silent minute passed, another two miles passed, but the old man wasn’t done. Waldron’s eyes met those of Evans before giving a head nod toward him. The skipper is turning us!

  “The hell with you,” Waldron transmitted.

  Evans felt a cold and electric sensation run the length of his body. By reflex, he tweaked the throttle and moved the controls to maintain his position in formation as the CO turned into him. If Sea Hag responded to the rebuke, Evans didn’t hear it. Where is the skipper taking us?

  He remembered Waldron’s word when he said that if he had to find the Japs by himself, he would. We must find them and hit them first. If we fail, there won’t be a ship to come back to.

  Waldron rolled out, signaling with the tomahawk chop signal Evans had learned in flight school to steady up on a given heading. Waldron then clenched his fist in front of him, his silly signal for attack. To Evans, it seemed as if he were grabbing the Japs by the throat.

  Evans checked the formation around him. Fourteen TBDs held position.

  What just happened?

  Genda noticed the quiet.

  As the last of the Americans flew off – almost fifty enemy planes had attacked the Kido Butai in the past hour – the bridge of Akagi returned to order and watch standers went about their duties with calm efficiency. Below decks, arming crews continued to rearm the kankōs two at a time. Soon, the force would turn into the wind to recover the morning strike. Genda reflected that he was standing at the nerve center of the finest carrier strike force in the world.

  Fifty airplanes of all types – and the Americans have not so much as scratched the paint on our hulls. Half of the Americans had been either shot down or had escaped to limp home with their dead in damaged and wheezing wrecks.

  Nagumo radiated tension, and Tone’s enigmatic float plane dominated his thoughts. He was powerless to make this plane report, to reach into their cockpit and shake some urgency into them from 200 miles away. Genda realized the search plan was one he had devised, starting with what the Force could spare, authorized with a cursory nod from Kusaka. He didn’t know if the Force Commander had ever seen it. The float plane pilots would receive training once this ended. He would see to it. Like his admiral, Genda was uneasy. Maybe we should have…

  A message came in and Ono read it aloud. “Report from Tone Number 4…the enemy is composed of five cruisers and five destroyers.”

  He smiled in satisfaction. “Just as I thought. There are no carriers.”

  Not so optimistic, Nagumo said nothing. A suspect report from a junior pilot in a creaky float plane. He turned to his chief of staff.

  “What do you think, Kusaka?”

  His face strained, Kusaka struggled to answer. “Admiral, he reported ten ships and has now identified them. That said, I’m still unconvinced. The report does not mean a carrier is not nearby.”

  Nagumo nodded, frustrated at the truth in Kusaka’s words. He wanted to scream. Oishi approached them.

  “Message from the screen, sir. The Midway strike force is approaching.” Genda took a step toward Nagumo to hear better. Kusaka began.

  “Admiral, once we launch the CAP relief, we must recover them. It will take thirty minutes, forty at most. Then we can swap out the ready attack aircraft.”

  “To attack what? I’m inclined to hit the ships.”

  “Midway remains a threat, but for now we must recover,” Kusaka answered.

  And steam west, Genda thought, hoping that his admirals could somehow hear his thundering mind. Too many unforeseen variables! His plan with its rigid timeline had not survived first contact. Throw it out!

  Like the First Air Fleet staff, the Mobile Force ships were confused and thrown off-balance by the unusual American attacks with all manner of planes from all points of the compass – except east. Now the Tomonaga force was back, and someone had reported a periscope sighting as destroyers raced to the attack.1 We must take a breath and think, Genda thought.

  Another message came in from Tone.

  “The enemy is accompanied by what appears to be a carrier.”

  Nagumo slammed the table with his open hand, and the tension on the bridge shot through the overhead.

  “What appears to be a carrier! A carrier!” Nagumo bellowed. “We needed this information thirty minutes ago!”

  Embarrassed and fearful, no one spoke. Kusaka collected himself in the nervous silence.

  “Force Commander, you are correct. However, they remain well over 200 miles away. We can now properly load our ready planes as we recover the Midway planes. We can then spot them, and launch a coordinated strike against the enemy carrier from all our ships.”

  “When!” Nagumo thundered.

  Kusaka swallowed as he thought. “Not long after 1000, Force Commander.”

  Genda stepped up. “I agree, Force Commander, and if it’s not a full complement, it will be close. We should launch each deck load as soon as they are ready. No delays for stragglers.”

  Nagumo breathed through his nose, trying to control his rage. The Force needed to close Midway in order to recover the planes airborne, then sprint to the northeast and close the American carrier from 200 miles. If he were still outside 200, so be it. He had to strike now. What is an American carrier doing here?

  Form battle line. Admiral Togo did so 37-years earlier at Tsushima to defeat the Russians, a western navy, signaling the arrival of Japan as a world power. A decisive battle all the officers of the Kido Butai had studied in detail. A battle fought by the commander in chief himself. From the bridge of Mikasa, Togo just swirled his fingers over his head and his column crossed the Russian “T.” Simple. Effective.

  Nagumo nodded to himself. Yamamoto-san wants that, to cross the American “T” when they come out of Hawaiian waters. To share in the glory. To turn back time. To be young again. He caught himself nodding in thought. The staff is watching you!

  Some forty years later, everything was different. Now flimsy flying machines ranged 200 miles – almost half a day’s steam! – to find and then sink ships on the open ocean. Submarines added an even more lethal dimension to naval warfare. After Etta Jima, he had become expert in naval rifles and torpedoes. None of his professors could ever have imagined this.

  Ono stepped between Kusaka and Oishi, his eyes submissive. Nagumo sensed he was about to be disappointed again.

  “Admiral, another message from the Tone scout: Two additional enemy ships, apparently cruisers, sighted. Bearing 008, distance
250 miles from Midway. Course 150. Speed 20 knots.”

  Nagumo threw up his hands and scowled at Kusaka. Ono took the dividers and plotted the sighting report, thankful to busy himself away from the heat directed at the chief of staff. Kusaka had not yet answered when he was handed another dispatch.

  After he read it, Kusaka spoke in a low tone, knowing he was about to deliver a message the Force Commander did not want to hear.

  “Admiral, from blinking light message relay Commander CarDiv 2: Deem it advisable to launch immediately.”

  At his limit, Nagumo exhaled and turned toward Hiryū and its junior admiral. Yamaguchi cannot wait to take my job.

  “Noted…and no response,” Nagumo said, frowning at Yamaguchi’s flagship across the waves while she recovered her CAP. Your ship is still my ship! He felt a growing tightness in his chest.

  I need to get off this bridge, for just a moment.

  Akagi’s flight deck was clear, waiting for their dive-bombers and fighters to return. Below, in the hangar bays, the armorers toiled reconfiguring his planes in the rising heat of mid-morning. Nagumo had to stay at his post, even with the privileges afforded a force commander.

  Musada spoke into the loudspeaker. “Clear Deck! Commence landing the attack group!”

  Formations of his planes arrived overhead and took landing interval on each other in a manner Nagumo still did not understand. They just did, and somehow landed without crashing. He could appreciate the dangers. Battleship gun turrets were dangerous. Torpedo attack was dangerous. He well understood why.

  Nagumo watched as the first Type Zero snagged a wire, was freed, and taxied forward, a strange machine from outer space.

  * * *

  1 USS Nautilus, LCDR W.H. Brockman

  Chapter 13

  Torpedo Eight, North of Midway, 0825 June 4, 1942

  Bill Evans could not get over it.

  Skipper Waldron had just told off Sea Hag, and on the radio, so the whole Pacific Fleet could hear! Without even answering, Ring and the SBDs had continued southwest.

  He glanced to his right. His roommate Hal held position in the formation. Down the line, the others maneuvered in a manner that resembled an accordion as they maintained their places out of the turn. Behind Evans, the XO’s division flew as one in trail.

  What’s the skipper doing? he thought, still stunned that the CO had left the group formation. The rest of the squadron followed him; not to do so was unthinkable, but what was he thinking? In the TBD next to Waldron, Moose concentrated on flying form. By instinct, Evans checked the time: 0825.

  Stretching his neck in both directions, Evans counted all fifteen Devastators. High to the left, the scouts and VB continued on in their big vee formations. Through breaks in the clouds, he saw the fighters in trail.

  Waldron was head down in the cockpit, glancing up only to stay level, as he worked his plotting board. Ahead was a crisp – and empty – horizon, covered by scattered clouds. Any clouds were welcome. Evans checked their heading: west. Sea Hag led the SBDs and fighters southwest. Where is the skipper going? We’ll miss them to the north. Now finished with his plotting-board calculations, Waldron looked straight off his nose, not moving a muscle.

  “Mistah Evans, what’s going on?” Bibb asked over the interphone.

  “We’re followin’ the CO. No change.”

  “Sir, somethin’s not right.”

  Evans agreed but remained silent.

  “The hell with you!”

  Evans and Bibb had heard it. The whole squadron had heard it. The Hornet Air Group had heard it. Bibb deserved an honest answer, but, just as dumbfounded, Evans didn’t know what to say. He turned his head to Hal who shrugged as if to say, hell if I know.

  “We’re stayin’ with the CO, Bibb. Nothing on the horizon, but I bet we’re inside an hour from the Japs. Anything more and we’ll have to turn back for fuel.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Relax for now. Still see ’em?”

  “Yes, sir, nine o’clock high. Can barely make them out. All the TBDs are here.”

  “Good. Track the VB as long as you can. The Japs may find them first.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Waldron motioned for them to continue straight ahead. He then turned to Evans and, with an open hand, pushed him away. Evans passed the signal to Hal, who passed it down the line. The TBDs opened up to form a scouting line, each aircraft scanning the sea ahead for anything: a mast, stack gas, AA puffs. Evans had seen the black marks the Hornet gunners had formed in training, had seen the newsreel images of the pockmarked sky over Pearl Harbor. He had never seen enemy antiaircraft but imagined he would in the next hour.

  Once the XO’s division moved into position and took station, the entire 15-plane squadron was steady on 270 in a line abreast. In the middle of it, Evans was confident. He and his mates had flown this formation before. A scouting line. Find and kill the enemy. They were spread out over a mile, and Waldron led his obedient pilots below 1,000 feet. There, they would better pick up any irregularities on that stark line where the sea met the sky.

  Evans’s senses were alive. He was aware of every cylinder firing, every wisp of slipstream that entered the cockpit. The sky between the clouds was the clearest he had ever seen, the sea a crystalline royal blue velvet. He was in a warplane, shoulder-to-shoulder with fourteen fellow pilots, the gunners behind them shoulder-to-shoulder with their fellows. All scanned the skies, checked the navigation, their manifold pressures, the gallons remaining, their guns, and the time. Evans couldn’t wait to write about this day, in detail, with the clarity of one who had been there, one who could remember with advantages.

  The skipper would find them for sure; the old Oglala Sioux was never more determined. He sat calmly in his cockpit, scanning the horizon and his wing placement with a technique learned in flight school, a technique passed down to Evans and the others in Pensacola, a technique Evans himself would one day teach to the hordes of men cramming the recruiting offices to join him out here in a scouting line of armed aircraft. He glanced left and right, up and down the line. Torpedo Eight flew as one, not one plane drifting, maintaining perfect position on each other. Waldron led them into battle as he had trained them, modern day Zouaves marching to the sound of the guns.

  The 2,000-pound Mk 13 below him swayed in place. Evans found he could handle this new sensation and trimmed T-3 as a natural extension of his being. His plane felt strong, poised to strike. Deadly. American steel, delivered by his hand, would strike against Japanese steel – and the men on the other side of it – sending them and their ship to Valhalla. One thousand yards, eighty feet at eighty knots. Evans was flying with his CO, the fightingest man on the ship. If only one man were going to get through, that man would be Skipper John Waldron, and, if Evans stayed close, he would have his best chance too. He would go back to Wesleyan, having done his duty here, to tell the next generation about the youth of this generation, condemned as slackers by the old-timers, thrust into war, into battle, for them, to save them and the society they all stood for. At that moment, it hit Evans that they were not fighting for the folks back home or America. Not for Sea Hag or Captain Mitscher. At that moment, he realized that he and Grant and Abbie and Whitey and XO Owens and Hal and Rusty and Moose, Bibb behind him and Chief Dobbs – and especially Skipper Waldron – were fighting for each other. He now understood what warriors through the ages had understood. And he sensed that here, over the trackless North Pacific, he had earned a place in their company.

  The minutes droned on, and he wondered if there was anything out here. Maybe they had missed them. What would happen to the CO if they had, after he had told off Sea Hag? What if Sea Hag and the dive-bombers got to the Japs without having the TBDs to finish them off? It dawned on him that, either way, the CO had signed his own professional death warrant. Public insolence to the air group commander! And on the common radio circuit!

  Still nothing visible anywhere on the horizon. He squeezed the interphone.

  �
�Bibb, see anything back there? Any trace of our VB and VF?”

  “Nothin’ sir, and I lost sight of them a way’s back.”

  “Very well,” Evans answered. He checked his fuel flow; he couldn’t lean the mixture anymore lest he fall out of position. Their outbound leg would take them to the limit of their range, but Hornet’s expected Point Option position would make the return leg at least thirty miles shorter. Maybe closer to forty. Evans was confident they’d make it okay.

  After 0900 and still nothing. Skipper Waldron hadn’t moved off heading as he led them at 112 knots. Evans twisted his torso to scan his rear quadrants. As he was trained, he focused his eyes on a patch of sky to better detect movement. Empty. Between breaks in the puffy clouds, the setting moon remained their only company as it beckoned them forward.

  More fuel calculations. They had enough for another forty miles, but Evans knew that Waldron would press on, squeezing more range out of their charges and betting the ship would be at the designated recovery point. Or not. The skipper had said running out of gas was a possibility they had to prepare for. He scanned behind him, another habit.

  Movement, a plane at five o’clock and over a mile. Evans watched as it overtook them, flying a parallel heading, and his heart beat faster. His eyes widened and he subconsciously pointed at it. Hal then turned to see what Evans was looking at.

  “There’s a fighter on our tail,” Waldron radioed.

  Evans couldn’t take his eyes off the enemy plane, painted green and moving fast. It looked big for a fighter, but it was fast. Everything was faster than a TBD.

  “Bibb, four o’clock going to three. We’ve got company. Look down our wing line.”

  “Lookin’, sir… Okay, ah’ve got it!” Evans felt their TBD lurch as Bibb adjusted himself to charge his guns. Next to Evans, the CO was padlocked on the intruder, keeping the unknown aircraft in sight as it continued ahead. They were at 600 feet; Waldron took them lower.