Voyages of the Seventh Carrier

by Peter Albano

  Jeffrey grinned, took the belt in several notches, and strapped it to his waist. The weapon felt heavy on his hip.

  Carpi pointed to a microphone mounted on a bulkhead above a panel of switches. “Your One-MC. You can communicate with the Exec, CEC, any department or All Stations. The switches are marked.” Foulger’s nod signaled understanding. “There will be a special seven December ceremony and band concert at 0900.” Carpi stabbed a finger at the stern where rows of empty chairs waited expectantly.

  Foulger’s eyes were caught by the graceful white arch of the Arizona memorial close astern. The memorial seemed to be alive with people. “Quite a crowd,” he said almost to himself.

  Anthony laughed. “It swarms with Japanese every seven December. They always bring their cameras.”

  “Reminiscing, nostalgic for the old glory days. Maybe they gloat over the Arizona.”

  “I guess the old fighters do, Jeff.” He scratched his chin. “You know, old warriors can never quit the battlefield. They keep coming back and they keep on hating.”

  Foulger spoke thoughtfully. “I think it’s in all of them. Maybe it gives them something to live for, Tony.”

  “Probably.” A large smile creased the pudgy face. “And speaking of old warriors, it’s time to inform you of the Rip Van Nip message.”

  “Rip Van Nip?”

  Anthony laughed. “Yes. It came down from CNO at 0100.” Taking Foulger by the arm, he led him to a stand at the top of the accommodation ladder. He opened a large green book, pointed while he read. “AD units are advised of the possible presence of remnants of Japanese World War II units in the Bering Sea, Aleutians, and north Pacific.”

  “I can’t believe it! Somebody must be drunk.”

  Carpi shrugged. “Well, there it is.”

  Foulger spoke in mock seriousness. “Don’t worry, Mister Carpi.” He patted his pistol. “I’ll be ready.”

  Anthony laughed. “I feel confident.” He patted his stomach. “Time to chow down.” The words brought his two enlisted men erect.

  In a moment, the log was signed, salutes exchanged, and Carpi and his two enlisted men vanished, the ensign forward to the wardroom and the two enlisted men ducking through a hatch and descending a ladder to the mess hall.

  Foulger turned to his enlisted men who eyed their OOD expectantly. “I guess we’ll have a busy watch … ” Then he heard the rumble.

  Santich cocked an ear skyward. “I sure hear a lot of engines, sir.”

  Wilcox spoke. “Those are old engines, Mister Foulger.”

  “Your right, Quartermaster,” Foulger said, looking skyward and turning his head. “They’re coming in from all points of the compass.” He shaded his eyes. “Jesus. Are they old — some even have fixed landing gear.”

  Grinning, Wilcox spoke, “I know what it is, sir. A special ceremony. Look! They even have red meat balls like old Japanese planes.”

  “But we weren’t told,” the ensign said. “It should have been in the orders of the day.” Wilcox shrugged. Waved a hand. “Well, there they are, sir.”

  Santich broke in. “Must be planes left over from an old movie.”

  “Guess so,” the ensign said.

  Suddenly there was a blast in Southeast Loch. The three men whirled. A ball of flame followed by black smoke rose from the Tarawa. Hurtling like arrows, three aircraft with fixed landing gear roared down on the stricken carrier. Unswerving, each struck the ship, exploding, sending huge chunks of wreckage boiling skyward lifted on tongues of flame and billowing black smoke.

  “My God! My God!” Foulger screamed with disbelief. The sounds of engines increased. Stunned, the ensign watched as aircraft dropped low on Southeast Loch, heading for the New Jersey. He shook his head, raced to the 1-MC. Snatched the microphone from its cradle. “This is not a drill! This is not a drill! General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations.” Then he threw a switch, heard the general alarm ring. He turned to the chief, mind amazingly clear. “How long to get that mother shooting?” He gestured at the Phalanx.

  “Less than two minutes.”

  Foulger glanced at Southeast Loch where the Tarawa had become a volcano, boiling fireballs and covering the Southeast Loch with a solid blanket of smoke that slowly began to blow down on the New Jersey.

  The ensign craned his neck. High and to the east, a single file of green aircraft approached. Each had a bomb under its fuselage. Jeffrey screamed. “Wilcox, Santich! Get to your battle stations!” The enlisted men raced to a hatch, vanished into the bowels of the ship. The Phalanx began to click and hum. ‘‘Come on you mother. There’s no time left!’’

  The ensign moved toward a ladder. He was still OOD, must move to the bridge, and keep the watch until relieved by the executive officer. He glanced at the bridge, grabbed the ladder, and began to climb. An engine roared behind him. Halting in midstride, he glanced over his shoulder. Low on the water, a green monoplane, with a cylinder beneath its fuselage, headed directly for him. The cylinder dropped, entered the water with a small splash.

  Foulger waved a fist, “No! No! Why?” As the plane roared over the battleship’s foretop, engine barking, Foulger gripped the ladder with all of his strength. Bursting from the port bow, a column of water leaped skyward. The battleship whipped and twisted. The young ensign felt a giant hand rip him from the ladder and hurl him to the deck on his back next to the Phalanx.

  Gasping and looking skyward, Jeffrey saw the first of seven green aircraft high in the sky release a tiny finned cylinder — a cylinder that fell slowly toward him, glistening in the sunlight like an icicle breaking from a spring eave. Foulger sat erect, waved a fist, screaming, “You have no right! You have no right! Why me?”

  Then three more aircraft slashed from the pall of Tarawa's pyre and charged the battleship in a line abreast. The Phalanx whirred and clicked, Gatling depressing and turning toward the approaching torpedo planes. There was a burst of gunfire that was so fast it sounded like a sheet ripping. The left hand plane exploded. The Phalanx whined. The barrels moved and again the ripping sheet. The middle plane dissolved into flaming bits.

  Jeffrey came to his feet shouting, ‘‘Kill them! Kill them.” He was looking directly at the surviving plane when its torpedo dropped. At the same moment, the Gatlings fired. Again, the rain of burning fragments.

  But the ensign knew the Phalanx had fired too late. He was clinging to the ladder when the torpedo struck. The New Jersey convulsed like a harpooned blue. The ensign felt himself propelled upward and then smashed down on the deck. A nightmare. A nightmare, flashed through his mind.

  The bombs began to fall. An explosion off the port quarter deafened him. He came to all fours. Tons of water poured down, soaking him. Shaking his head, he pulled himself erect. He stared upward. The string of green planes was passing directly overhead. At least four bombs were dropping directly on him. Now the roar of engines was joined by shrieks of banshees.

  There was a series of explosions amidships. “Too late! Too late!” Foulger screamed as three five-inch mounts came to life, six muzzles vomiting flame skyward. A column of water erupted off the starboard side. Then a sharp blast astern turned the ensign’s head just in time to see the Arizona Memorial dissolve in a tower of broken concrete and twisting bodies.

  The Phalanx was firing. Foulger moved his gaze to Southeast Loch. A swarm of torpedo planes, charging out of the smoke. Then there was a muffled rumble and the clang of ripping steel. The ensign grabbed the ladder. Flame erupted amidships and a five-inch gun mount flew skyward and then fell into the harbor. The Phalanx went silent. Only one five-inch mount was firing. Four planes roared overhead.

  “No! No!” Foulger clung to the ladder. There was an explosion near the bow. Then, almost at his feet, there was a consuming blast, heat, and the ship heaved, hurling the young ensign from the ladder, against the dead Phalanx and to the deck.

  And as the darkness closed, the noises lingered and he tried to pull out of the world, even cover his ears, close
out the explosions, screams, and now strangely, the thud of helicopters. The darkness almost succeeded, blotting out everything but the rotors. But the hard, pulsating sound persisted, breaking into the nightmares.

  TWELVE

  7 December 1983

  Cmdr. Masao Shimizu had been chagrined since sighting the pilotless aircraft 150 kilometers north of Oahu. It was just after reading KIKI’s signal and making a five-degree course change that he had sighted it on the horizon. Similar to the Russian giant Captain Ross called a Tupolev, the small aircraft was a jet and approached his formation head-on and about two hundred meters higher. Fortunately, it was flying at a slow speed.

  Although he knew he was ordered not to fly above a hundred meters, he had no choice. His command had been sighted, or would have been if anyone had been in the approaching jet. He remembered looking to his two wingmen — NAP First Class Kenji Kiton on his left and Ensign Shori Doihara on his right — waggling his wings, and stabbing a finger at the nearing aircraft.

  Then he had pushed the throttle to overboost and pulled back the stick. But the strange jet never deviated from its course or altitude. Climbing to meet the intruder, he made the easiest kill of his career. The plane actually flew into the wings of his range finder. When the nose filled his sights, he was only forty meters from the target. Then he thumbed the red button, firing, perhaps, twenty rounds of twenty millimeter.

  Explosions shredded the belly of the aircraft and almost blew an engine free. The plane had leaped upward like a wounded bird and began a slow roll. That was when he saw it.

  Climbing, his wingmen tight to his wingtips, he rolled close to the doomed aircraft and looked directly into the cockpit. It was unmanned. There was no one in it. Absolutely no one.

  As he completed his roll, and resumed his station, his mind had been filled with thoughts of a drone plane sent by the Americans to locate them and mark them for attack by new, mysterious weapons. Watching the mysterious plane crash into the sea, his jaw had been firm, his mind filled with resolve. The manner of death in battle was of no concern to a samurai. They would attack whatever weapons the Americans threw at them and meet their fates, unflinching.

  But now, high over Pearl Harbor, he knew there had been no discovery, no warning. As he climbed to four thousand meters, trailed by twenty fighters — two had dropped into the sea enroute — he pulled his microphone to his lips and exulted, “Tora, tora, tora.” He could see Araki’s dive bombers already plummeting on Wheeler and

  Hickam where American planes were lined up like rows of bent crosses.

  Then he saw the carrier and the huge battleship moored near Ford Island. And just astern of the battleship, there was a puzzling white vessel which looked like the deck of a gigantic submarine. Yes. That was it. He could see a two-hundred-meter hull beneath the white deck. But the carrier came first.

  He shouted into the microphone. “Araki. At the Navy Yard. A carrier!”

  But Araki had already seen the great, flat vessel. Ten of his B6N2s converged on the carrier, while his seven shell-carrying aircraft climbed far to the east in a single line and began their run on the battleship.

  Suddenly, Shimizu’s fighter was tossed about like a butterfly in a gale. He kicked his rudder, moved the stick to his left, looked down as he banked. The carrier had exploded, a great greasy, glowing cloud roiled skyward. Still more dive bombers hurtled downward. Blasts. More shocks. The commander threw a glance over his shoulder. His command, rocked by the explosions, still held formation.

  He led the formation over Hickam. Aichis, joined by their escorting Zeros, were strafing. Explosions ripped through rows of aircraft. He could see frantic ant-like figures racing for parked fighters only to be mown down by the strafing aircraft. And smoke and flame were rising from Wheeler.

  He looked for the torpedo planes. Finally saw them. Swarming in low over the southern end of the island, breaking through the smoke of the immolated carrier, they headed for the battleship. He shouted with joy when the first torpedo struck home.

  But he could not rejoice over the destruction below. He wondered about a menace from above. Knew there must be a patrol nearby. The Americans could not be completely unprepared. He scanned the sky, moving his head restlessly in the classic, searching ritual of the fighter pilot.

  His eyes narrowed, focusing on four specks on the western horizon. And then into the microphone, “Aircraft! Must be fighters bearing two-seven-zero — high! At a very long range.”

  Toyofuku’s voice rasped in his ears. “I’m under attack from autogiros, Commander.”

  Shimizu looked down, cursed. Four autogiros, appearing as huge dragonflies, were attacking the stream of torpedo bombers. Two bombers exploded as he watched.

  He pulled the microphone to his lips, glanced over his shoulder. “Lieutenant Shigemitsu, take the last three sections and intercept the fighters. My section and section two will engage the autogiros. Sections three and four remain on station.” He paused, heard the acknowledgments, then shouted, “Execute.”

  The formation dissolved, nine Zeros banking toward the fighters, five following Shimizu as he pushed his stick forward. Ahead, three more torpedo bombers flamed and crashed, two into the Navy Yard and one into the harbor. And he saw the battleship open fire — open fire with an unbelievable weapon that shot three Nakajimas out of the sky in seconds. He cursed. Pounded the fire wall. He knew his entire torpedo command was in danger of destruction. But the battleship took another torpedo.

  The plummeting Zeros separated, becoming two arrows of three. But the pilots of the autogiros were alert. Quickly, they broke off their attack on the bombers, turned and climbed to meet the fighters.

  The enemy approached in two pairs. Just as the commander brought the right-hand enemy to the center of his sights and pressed the firing button, the four enemy aircraft exploded with brilliant orange flame that almost hid them. Thousands of tracers glowed toward him. He held his thumb down hard, grimaced, bared his teeth, saw his tracers hit the enemy. Rotor shattered, the aircraft dropped like it had suddenly turned to lead, exploding as it hit the ground.

  But Kitao’s Zero, close to his left wingtip, suddenly became a flaming maelstrom of churning, burning fragments. Two other Zeros exploded. In a split second the two flights passed each other.

  Shimizu pulled back hard on the stick, kicked the rudder pedal, looped and rolled, reversing directions. He was stunned. Two autogiros were actually diving on him, firing, while a third, smoking, settled softly to the ground.

  Shimizu fired, saw his tracers smash into an American just below the rotor. Smoke burst from its engine. It dropped off suddenly, and descended like a parachutist, rotor apparently softening its descent.

  The one remaining Zero to his left suddenly flipped on its back and roared toward the ground under full power. Only he and Shori Doihara were left. The ensign was firing. The pair of Zeros was almost on the enemy when the autogiro exploded, rotor still spinning, drifting downward, following a rain of burning fragments like an umbrella.

  There was no time for celebration. Not even for “Banzais.” He looked to the western sky, pulled back his stick, kicking the rudder. Shigemitsu’s nine Zeros and four American fighters were now only a few kilometers apart. He glanced to his right. Doihara’s Zero was gone. He turned his head, found his wingman, trailing smoke. He returned to the converging fighters to the west, pulled back his canopy, and grasped his flare gun.

  Suddenly, flares arced from every Japanese plane. He raised his gun. Fired. Then climbed toward the converging flights, exhorting his Sakae, pounded the fire wall.

  Suddenly, with the flights still separated by kilometers, every American plane flamed, rockets leaping fearfully from their wings, and racing toward the Japanese.

  Unswerving, Shigemitsu headed for the enemy. Most of the rockets sought the flares, but two Zeros exploded into great fireballs. Then the American fighters flamed with the same orange flame that had spurted from the autogiros. A shredded, burning Japanese fighter
plummeted. The remaining six A6M2s closed fast, unswerving, firing.

  Shimizu held his breath. The flights met.

  Lightning. A crash of thunder. And then cubic kilometers of sky blossomed with flame. Smoke. Burning, cartwheeling wreckage. Smoking engines flying like thrown marbles. Wings, pieces of fuselage, canopies, raining from the great, crimson cyclone. And bodies, some still belted to their seats, tumbled.

  Shimizu strained against his seat belt. Raised his goggles. Squinted. Nothing flew. Not a single aircraft. The entire flight of American fighters wiped out by ramming. “Banzai!” Shigemitsu and his men had stormed their way into the Yasakuni Shrine.

  What a way to die! Magnificent. He pulled the microphone to his mouth. Shouted, “Banzai.” And a chorus of “Banzais” came back through his earphones. He turned. Closed the canopy. Spotted Doihara’s Zero far behind, still smoking.

  In a moment, the commander was alongside his wingman. There was a glow just behind the ensign’s cockpit. The commander pointed. The ensign nodded, turned toward the battleship which was smoking and listing. Ensign Doihara grasped his hachimaki headband and pushed the Zero into a dive. Shimizu shouted, “Banzai” as the white fighter, now flaming, streaked down on the battleship. And then, “Get the New Jersey.”

  *

  Ensign Dennis Banks was seated at the controls of his Bell AH-1J Cobra when he heard the engines in the distance. Cursed with a hangover, he did not even glance up as the noise slowly increased. He was sullen and resentful over this early morning mission to the Kahoolawe target range. Fly for nearly an hour, make target runs for thirty minutes and return, not to Wheeler but to the Tarawa. Well, at least, they’d be back aboard ship. He disliked Wheeler. Old and small, the field was home for a half dozen ancient Douglas C-47’s and a dozen olive-drab Hueys. Both the transports and the helicopters squatted a half mile to the south in rows in front of the huge hangars.

  He yawned, stretched, and glanced directly ahead over the head of his co-pilot, Leland Hyatt, who sat in the nose of the helicopter and slightly below his line of vision. Only a few yards away, the fourth member of his flight, Ensign Wendel Clark, slowly rotated his Cobra around a huge concrete compass rose.