Rising Sun

by Robert Conroy

  They agreed that it was a splendid idea. Harding said his wife lived a couple of miles away and would get them some clothing so they could get started on some real shopping without having to wear hospital gowns.

  “Just curious, but what would you have done if we’d said we wouldn’t cooperate?” asked Grace.

  Harding smiled grimly. “Then we would have moved you to a place in the desert with real guards and it would have taken decades to find your nursing credentials.”

  Grace nodded. “Keeping mum sounds like a splendid idea to me.”

  Harding turned and smiled at Amanda. “And I do hope you find your boyfriend in San Diego.”

  Amanda blushed. “Are my motives that transparent?”

  He laughed. “Yes.”

  Amanda flushed. “He’s a navy officer and his name’s Tim Dane and he was supposed to leave Hawaii on a sub. Have you heard of him?”

  Harding shook his head. “No, but it’s a big navy. I’ll check around. Any of you other ladies have anybody you want me to check up on?”

  * * *

  Ruby Oliver and her little band of soldiers had been augmented by one more GI who carried a tattered duffle bag instead of a rifle. He explained that he was the base photographer and that the major had told him to take pictures of his troops fighting off the Japanese.

  “And I did what he said, Miss Oliver, and it made me sick,” said Private Perkins.

  Ruby took him aside so they could talk privately. “First of all, call me Miss Oliver again and I’ll be forced to kill you and it will be painful. Understand?”

  Perkins was a scrawny kid who was well outmanned by Ruby. “Okay,” he said with a shy grin. “Ruby.”

  “Now, what kind of cameras do you have in that bag?”

  “Ah, one eight-millimeter movie camera and a couple of regular cameras. The eight-millimeter’s one of those that’s sixteen millimeter and takes pictures on two halves.”

  Ruby had no idea what he was talking about, but decided it didn’t matter. “And you took pictures of everything?”

  Perkins face fell and his lips began to tremble. He had seen much too much for a young kid. “Yeah. I started shooting when we pulled out of the base and kept it up when Jap shells started clobbering us. I started to help some of the wounded, but the major told me to keep filming so people would know what had happened, so I did. Then he got killed along with the wounded I was trying to help. When I realized I was alone, I ran into the town and watched as the Japs massacred the prisoners by shoving them into the ocean.”

  “You got that on film?” Ruby asked incredulously.

  “All of it, Ruby. Every second of it,” he said and started to cry. “They were my friends.”

  “How old are you, Perkins?”

  “Seventeen. I lied to get in. I’ll never tell a lie again. I’d really just like to go home.”

  She held him to her bosom and hugged him until he calmed down. None of the others could see the exchange, so no one would mock him for being a sissy and breaking down in front of a woman. If they had, she would have chewed them out until they’d cried as well. None of them had handled this disaster very well, and a couple looked like they too were on the verge of emotional collapse.

  “You have any film left?”

  “Lots, and of both types.”

  She took him back to the others and introduced him. They were from different units and didn’t know him very well. The men were uninterested until she told them he was going to take their pictures and send them home to loved ones. At that point they brightened up. Maybe life wasn’t so futile after all.

  First, though, they had to find a place that was far enough from the Japs and where they could communicate with the rest of the world either by phone or radio. Maybe she could arrange for a small plane to land somewhere and pick them up along with Perkins’s films. Remembering the massacre of the prisoners made her angry once more, but having proof of it would be vindication. Let the world see what miserable, barbaric sons of bitches the Japs were.

  She looked at her nervous and frightened flock, and wondered—what have I done to deserve this? “I know you’re all soldiers and the highest ranking one of you is supposed to lead, but let me make a proposition. I’m from here and I know the area. I’m confident I can get us all to safety, including Perkins and his magic cameras. If you don’t want me to work with you, that’s okay too, and I’ll just strike off on my own and leave your worthless asses here to either starve, be eaten by grizzlies, or be captured and you know what’ll happen to you then.”

  One of the soldiers, a PFC, stood and smiled. “My name is Crain and we’ve already talked it over and I guess I’m senior and would normally be in command. However, back at the fort I was a cook and not really much of a soldier. None of us are so stupid that we’d reject your idea, and we’re all willing to follow your lead.”

  “Good.”

  “One thing, though. When we get back to the real world and the real army, please tell them you were just advising us, won’t you?”

  * * *

  Dane’s first view of the attack force that would strike the Japs at Anchorage came from one of the inadequate windows of the C47 that was carrying him and others to Puget Sound. Below, the twelve PBYs looked like either strange toys or a flock of large but truly ugly birds sitting on the water. More and more he doubted the wisdom of launching an attack on the Japanese invaders with such unwarlike planes. He was beginning to deeply regret opening his mouth and putting both himself and others in peril.

  He asked for and got permission to fly again with Ensign Tuller who openly called it a suicide mission and berated him for coming up with the idea. “Look, Commander, it’s one thing for us to attack a sub or a relatively unarmed freighter, but we’re no good at hitting ground targets and we’ll be nothing more than low, slow targets for Jap gunners.”

  “Which is why the plan calls for us to fly low and slow and come in over from land, rather than water. Hopefully, they won’t expect us to come from that direction.”

  “With respect, Commander, ‘hopefully,’ my ass. Low I’ll give you and slow is the only way we can fly, and coming in over land might just give us the element of surprise, but that won’t last long. Maybe ten seconds if we’re lucky. Besides, I’ll give you a dollar for every real target we hit.”

  Dane could not argue with Tuller’s assessments. What was now referred to as “Dane’s idea” had taken hold and would be implemented regardless. As Spruance had explained to him as he was departing, “It’s vitally important for us to hit back at the Japs, or at least be perceived as hitting back. The American public is demanding that we do something, anything, to strike back at our enemies. Even though Alaska isn’t a state, it’s damn close to us and we just can’t let them get away with invading us and not do anything.”

  When Dane had been on the verge of saying something, the admiral had put his hand on Dane’s shoulder. “Doolittle’s raid was a mission with little chance of success and it managed to rile the Japanese government into doing something foolish. With just a little bit of luck, the Japs would have suffered the disaster at Midway and not us.”

  “Even if we do nothing other than dig holes in the ground with bombs and lose a lot of planes?” Dane asked.

  “No. It won’t be like flying over Japan and then having to bail out over China like Doolittle’s boys did,” Spruance said. “You’ll have a much greater chance of survival.”

  Dane shuddered. While many of Doolittle’s pilots had escaped, some had been shot down and captured. Rumors had it that they either would be executed or had already been killed.

  Spruance continued. “The Catalinas will come in, hit, and fly back out just as fast as they can. There is no indication that the Japs have any planes on the ground or much in the way of antiaircraft guns, and we’re certain there are no carriers out there.”

  Dane wondered how the admiral could be so certain, but again kept his mouth shut. He was getting good at that. He did wonder if the na
vy had some superior source of intelligence regarding the Japanese he wasn’t being told about.

  The next day, they flew the PBYs from Puget Sound to Juneau, which was still an incredible eight hundred miles from Anchorage. “Jesus,” said an incredulous Tuller. “Don’t they make anything close to anything else up here?”

  They and the rest of the PBY’s crew were in a bar in Juneau having a meal. To a man they resisted the urge to call it their last supper. Since they would be flying over land, the actual flying distance would be much longer than crow-fly miles, more than a thousand miles altogether. Days were getting shorter, so they would have to leave before dawn to arrive over the target before nightfall. Their cruising speed was a lowly one hundred and twenty-five miles per hour, which meant at least an eight-hour trip each way.

  Tuller accepted the inevitable. “Commander, don’t forget to bring a change of socks and underwear, and some nice warm pajamas would also be a good idea.”

  “Tuller, go screw yourself,” Dane said and then ordered another round of beers for “his” crew.

  The next morning they took off before dawn as planned and formed to four groups of three each. They did not keep radio silence; instead, only mimicked casual conversations between bush pilots to maintain order and help keep in visual contact.

  Alaskans on the ground had set up radio beacons, and the Ugly Duckling Flight, as they now called themselves, duly turned west after several hours and headed to Anchorage. As they got closer, a female voice identified only as Ruby Red chatted inanely about food and fuel shortages, and the flight followed her signal. At a certain point they dropped down to less than five hundred feet.

  “There we are,” yelled Tuller. “Finally.”

  The small town of Anchorage was coming up fast. Rows of tents were visible in a field alongside the road leading to Fort Richardson. Tuller laughed. “God, we can’t miss a field full of tents, can we?”

  The Japanese were not asleep. Spotters on high ground had seen the planes, but only at the last minute. As PBYs dropped their loads, machine-gun and rifle fire blazed up at them.

  “We’re hit,” yelled one of the machine gunners who was busy returning fire. To Dane’s horror, holes had appeared in the plane’s hull.

  “One down,” yelled Tuller. One of the PBYs had been mortally wounded and had just crashed in flames. Another was burning but still staying aloft.

  “We’re done,” Tuller yelled and turned his plane due south.

  More Japanese machine guns opened up and more planes were struck. Dane saw that one of the Catalinas was attempting to land in the water off Anchorage. Not a good idea, Dane thought. What the Japanese would do to the survivors wasn’t pleasant to contemplate. They should have tried for land farther south, but maybe they didn’t have a choice. Tuller was screaming into his radio, but Dane couldn’t hear it. One of the bow gunners nudged him and Dane looked back to where the bombs had dropped. Yes, they had managed to hit the field. A total of forty-eight five-hundred-pound bombs had been dropped on the tent city, but, he wondered, had anybody been in the tents?

  He also wondered how many Americans had perished in this exercise, and the thought that it had been his idea made him slightly ill. How the hell do people like Spruance or Nimitz get away with sending people to their deaths and not cracking up over it? If that was one of the privileges of rank, he thought, the brass could keep it.

  * * *

  The little town of Grover, California, was about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It consisted of a couple hundred frame houses, some stores, and a few churches. It also had thirty-five-year-old and unemployed Fred Hanson, who was waking up on the beach after a long evening of drinking with some friends at the hotel where he once worked. Sleeping on the beach had been a little chilly but much better than going home and confronting his wife.

  Maria was half Mexican and had a temper that was half volcano. When Fred had a little too much to drink, she was not rational, in Fred’s highly biased opinion. Thus, he’d made the decision to sack out on the sand. If he had been a truthful man, Fred would have admitted that he wouldn’t have been able to walk to his house in the first place. Being unemployed, he had a lot of time on his hands. Even he had to admit that he was jobless by choice. Sometimes he thought about going to nearby San Diego or even Los Angeles and getting a job in one of the burgeoning war industries, but that never quite appealed to his minimal sense of ambition. So far, too, he’d been declared too old to be drafted, but he knew that could change at any time. What the hell, he thought, he’d face that problem when it came along, which was pretty much the way he ran his life.

  The Town of Grover was its official full and pretentious name. It had advertised itself as an affordable tourist location before the war, but there were damn few tourists nowadays.

  Fred rubbed his eyes and splashed water on his face. He was careful not to swallow. The salt water would have upset his stomach even more than it was, and the last thing he wanted right now was a case of the heaves. Damn, Maria was going to be pissed. He couldn’t put it off, though. It was Sunday morning and maybe the good, devout Catholic woman would be at church when he sneaked home.

  Speaking of piss, he stood, smiled, and relieved himself hugely into the ocean, sending a multibeer stream arching well into the sea, hoping as always that he hadn’t killed any of the little fish that swam around in the shallows. He blinked and noticed a pair of warships a mile or so offshore. They looked different. He wasn’t an expert, but they looked, well, foreign. He’d seen a number of American ships cruising by, but there was something not right about these two. What the hell, he thought as he carefully zipped up his fly. Maybe the navy got some new style ships and why not? The old ones hadn’t done them all that much good so far. Every time they went out, it seemed that they got themselves sunk.

  Lights flickered on the ships, and, seconds later, something shrieked through the sky and impacted in the town, sending debris and dirt high into the air. The explosions were shocking and ear-shattering and threw him to the ground. When he looked up, he saw that several buildings in Grover had been damaged and were on fire. Jesus, he thought, those were Jap ships and the Japs were shelling Grover. Why? What had the people of Grover done to deserve it?

  More shrieking shells flew over him and landed in Grover. People spilled out of their homes and ran around, confused, terrified, and aimless. Fred lurched to his feet and watched as a number of them headed to the nearby Baptist church for what they might have thought was sanctuary. But that was a mistake as another shell hit it squarely, causing what could only have been incredible carnage inside. Outside, torn bodies littered the ground. Fred could hold it no longer. He threw up all over himself.

  Fred regained control and took off for his home as fast as his legs would propel him. Others were heading out of town in cars, on bicycles, or, like him, just running like hell.

  More shells struck around him. One of his neighbors grabbed Fred’s arm. His eyes were wide with terror. “What the hell’s going on, Fred?”

  Fred pushed him away angrily. “How the hell would I know?” He had to find his family.

  Finally he saw Maria and the two boys running toward him. At least she wouldn’t be mad at him right now unless she was blaming him for the disaster. She was wide-eyed with fear and the boys were crying uncontrollably. Maria threw herself into his arms and, sobbing, asked him what was happening and told him that she was terrified. Welcome to the club, Fred thought.

  He grabbed her arm and she took the kids. They didn’t own a car so they would have to walk to get out of Grover. People from everywhere had the same idea and soon the two-lane dirt road that led inland toward the mountains was choked with people. Behind them, the bombardment continued then, as suddenly as it began, stopped. When he was certain it was safe to look back, Fred saw that the two Japanese warships had turned and were heading toward the horizon. Scores of buildings were on fire and the flames were beginning to spread. Unless somebody took charge, the town
of Grover would be ashes in a very short while. However, it didn’t look like anybody was interested in fighting fires, only running.

  “Where’s our fucking navy?” Fred raged. Maria tried to shush him, but she suddenly began screaming and swearing when she realized that their two-bedroom home was burning furiously. Everything they owned except the clothes on their backs was being consumed by flames. For once Fred was grateful that they rented instead of owned like Maria wanted.

  Almost half an hour later, a dozen American fighters flew overhead and out to sea. “Where the fuck have you been?” Fred yelled impotently. “Where the fuck is Roosevelt and all the assholes who are supposed to protect us?” Before this, they had been poor, poor but proud. Now they were destitute. What would happen to them?

  Long lines of people from Grover and other towns in the area headed inland toward what they hoped was safety. It was a regular exodus, Fred thought, or maybe it was like the newsreels of French civilians fleeing the Nazis. Where they would go and who would feed them, they didn’t know. Maria had stopped crying and hung onto his arm with grim determination. He commented about the French refugees, and she clutched his arm and asked him if they’d sunk to that level. Fred said he had no fucking idea but it sure looked like it. Maria didn’t chastise him for swearing in front of the boys, and she hadn’t said anything about the puke on his clothes. She was too busy crying again. Fred quietly decided that getting a job in a factory wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  CHAPTER 9

  THREE AMERICAN PLANES HAD GONE DOWN IN THE ATTACK ON the Japanese facilities at Anchorage. The first had crashed near the city in a blaze of flames and the explosion of a bomb that hadn’t been released, which told Ruby and the others that finding survivors was highly unlikely.

  The second one landed in the water a mile down Cook Inlet and was quickly surrounded by Japanese soldiers in small boats. As they watched from a prudent distance, the surviving crewmembers were becoming prisoners whose fate was grim. They were punched and shoved as they were thrown into the Japanese boats, heedless of any possible injuries they might have had. The enemy was furious at the attack that had left a number of Japanese soldiers dead and wounded, along with a score of small fires where the bombs had landed in their tent city. Helping the downed airmen was impossible. Their fate was in the hands of merciless Japanese.