Dive Beneath the Sun

by R. Cameron Cooke

  There was not an equivalent chess piece to represent Giles’ contribution. Indeed, if the grand conflict between these two mighty opponents were a chess game, his would be the cut of the eyes, the cleared throat, the tapping of the fingers that one opponent might use to throw off the other’s game. It was a crucial component of any duel, but seldom appreciated by the so-called fighting elements.

  Now, with victory in the air, it was getting ever more difficult to persuade the higher commanders that his component was still necessary. All efforts seemed to be bent on hammering the enemy with the overwhelming number of ships, planes, tanks, and machine guns being churned out by the Allies’ vastly superior production capacity. A massive fleet of warships and transports was being assembled to support the landing of MacArthur’s army in the Philippines. With the landings less than two weeks away, the Antietam’s task group and many others had been launching raids against Japan’s remaining pacific garrisons in an attempt to lure the Japanese main fleet away from the Philippines.

  It had taken a personal meeting with Commander-in-Chief Pacific Operating Areas for Giles to arrange the use of the Antietam force for this special operation, and even that was granted with much reluctance and skepticism. But as daring and brash as Giles’s operations tended to sound, their intent was to save lives in the end, and indeed they had done exactly that on many occasions. Where others believed in using brute force and carpet bombing, Giles favored finesse and pin-point precision – small nudges in strategic places to tip the giant sumo wrestler off his balance and send him careening out of the ring.

  Giles knew that Packard, and many of his staff, resented having him aboard. Giles was used to the sidelong glances and the whispers. He understood that Packard and his staff were concerned this diversion might keep them out of the main show, the big naval battle many expected when MacArthur’s troops landed in the Philippines. If the Antietam and her task group delayed here much longer, they might be heading east to refuel while the rest of the fleet headed west for the invasion.

  “I still think this is a rotten use of good pilots and valuable aircraft, Teddy,” Packard finally said. “We’re risking a whole squadron of bombers on some worthless freighter. It seems foolish to me.”

  “That’s the beauty of following orders, Dave,” Giles said in a superior tone he never could seem to avoid. “It is not necessary for you to approve of them before you carry them out.”

  Packard shot him a hateful glance, but then visibly checked himself. He continued with forced affability. “What gives about these targets, anyway, Teddy? Yesterday, it was a warehouse. Today it’s a freighter. What’s the scoop? As the task group commander, I think I have a right to –”

  “To perform the task CINCPOA has given you.” Giles interrupted. “And that is to provide all necessary support to my operation, if and when I request it.”

  Packard’s amicable expression vanished. “You always were an asshole, Teddy! And it may interest you to know, that is the general consensus throughout the fleet. The commanders of the other task groups and I have heard of your shenanigans, strutting around the fleet like you’re all high and mighty, showing up without so much as a moment’s notice, always bearing some ambiguous orders giving you license to use our men and ships in your cloak and dagger schemes. Well, let me tell you something, these boys are flesh and blood. A good many of them might not come back from this cooked up mission of yours. I lost three aircraft in that strike of yours yesterday – five men, Teddy. We took the Japs by surprise, then. Today, they’ll be ready for us.”

  “If your pilots had destroyed the target yesterday, Dave, there would be no need for the sortie today.” Again, Giles said it in a tone he did not intend but could not help. He was quite used to commanders flying off the handle at him. So much so, that he had become desensitized to it.

  “Damn you to hell, Teddy!” Packard said furiously. “Do you know what it’s like diving on a target with thousands of Jap twenty millimeter tearing your plane apart around you? Do you know what it’s like to write the damn letters to the families back home?”

  Giles did not respond. He really was not in any mood to pander to Packard, not while there was still a chance to salvage what Packard’s pilots had bungled yesterday. And now, there was another chance to destroy the target. A message had come in late in the morning stating that guerillas on Mindanao had sighted the cargo being loaded aboard a freighter. If it was true, then they had only a few hours in which to act. After that…

  “I am in command of this task group, Admiral Giles. You do realize that, don’t you?” Packard spoke formally now as he gazed down on the dozens of whirling propellers below. His face was set tightly, as if he was considering his next words very carefully. “There is a low pressure front moving in. The forecast says we’re in for a long period of foul weather, and it’s late in the day. Who knows how quickly the weather might change on us. If I send my planes off now, to blow up your secret target, I might have a tough time recovering them. They’ll have to fly to the extreme limit of their range. You recall, a few months ago, Mitscher faced a similar dilemma, and we all know what happened there.”

  Giles knew Packard was referring to the Battle of the Philippine Sea, during which Admiral Mitscher, the commander of the American carrier force, ordered two hundred and thirty planes into the air late in the day to attack a Japanese carrier group detected at extreme range. The attack had been a success, with one enemy carrier sunk and three heavily damaged, but it had come at a high cost. Eighty of Mitscher’s aircraft, one third of the attacking force, either crashed attempting to land on their carriers at night or ran out of fuel before making it back to the fleet. A quarter of the air crews were never found.

  “I’m taking a huge risk sending my men out now.” Packard said. “Without knowing the true importance of the target, I have a mind to ground this whole air wing.”

  Giles studied him coolly. “Your pilots have been trained to take risks, Admiral. As have you. Would you hesitate to launch under the same conditions if the target were a Japanese carrier, or a battleship? This freighter is no less important. In fact, it has a much higher strategic value, when you consider what it’s carrying.”

  “Kind of hard to consider that, Teddy, when I don’t know what the hell it’s carrying.”

  “I regret that you and your pilots must be kept in the dark. It is the nature of today’s warfare, I suppose. Were I you, I would have given your pilots something tangible to ensure they carry out this attack with vigor. Anything to inspire them. Tell them they’re bombing Hirohito’s private yacht, if that’s what it takes.”

  “You are not me, you cold son of a bitch!” Packard retorted hotly.

  Giles was about to assume the nasty tone that was sometimes necessary in situations like these. He would politely inform Packard that, if he wished to retain his command beyond the end of the month, he would launch the strike at once. But before Giles could say another word the phone beside the admiral’s chair buzzed, and Packard picked it up in a huff.

  As the task group admiral listened, his face drew suddenly grave. He gave short, heated responses. Giles then noticed a sudden bustle of activity on the deck below. The ladders on the superstructure were suddenly crowded with men in helmets and flak jackets. The next moment, the general alarm sounded.

  “General quarters! General quarters! All hands, man your battle stations!” the loudspeakers blared.

  By the time the droning alarm had finished, Packard had hung up the phone, his face grim. He ignored Giles’s curious glance and took two steps to the railing, grabbing up a pair of binoculars.

  “What is it, Dave?” Giles asked.

  “We’re under attack. Radar’s picked up multiple aircraft closing rapidly from the southwest, probably from the Jap airfields on Mindanao. After yesterday’s strike, they would have had their scout planes combing the seas in all directions. It was only a matter of time before they found us here. Our CAP is moving to intercept, but there are too many. Som
e might get through.”

  Giles followed Packard’s gaze and saw a scattering of black dots on the horizon, anti-aircraft bursts from the destroyers on the outer ring of the formation. As the puffs of smoke began marching across the sky, ever closer to the carrier, a flak jacket and helmet were shoved into Giles’ hands by a lieutenant who was already bedecked in his own protective gear. Giles noticed Packard had already donned his battle gear, and had returned the binoculars to his face, scanning the gray sky above.

  Within moments, they were joined by the captain of the ship, who was sweating profusely after running up the ladder.

  “I need to clear those bombers off my deck, Admiral,” he said hotly. “And I’m sending the fighters up to intercept the Japs. This mission is going to have to wait.”

  As he said this, a Hellcat roared down the flight deck and took off, its straining engine blaring as it instantly began a climb to gain altitude on the approaching enemy. Seconds later, another fighter took off to join it. Two more planes instantly rolled forward revving their engines for their own launch.

  Packard shot a glance at Giles before answering. “Of course, Captain, the ship comes first. Cancel the mission and get the rest of the fighters aloft. Repel the enemy attack.”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral,” the captain said, already on his way back down the ladder to the Antietam’s bridge.

  Giles noticed that Packard appeared oddly victorious over this turn of events. There really was no argument Giles could make against the decision, though he personally would have chosen to launch the mission anyway. He watched with despair as a throng of sailors in brightly colored shirts and tightly-fitting skull caps swarmed around the parked dive bombers. The wings were quickly folded up and the aircraft pushed toward the elevators to get their dangerous payloads below decks.

  By the time Giles had figured out how to don the vest and helmet, something he had seldom done before, the last pair of Hellcats had zoomed into the sky. These two took off under their own power, choosing not to wait for the catapults to be reset. Giles could see the striped, camouflaged hull of the Reprisal, two miles off the port beam. She was launching fighters, too.

  Giles could not see any enemy planes yet. They were flying just above the low clouds, but their path was easy enough to follow. A spattering of tracer fire and anti-aircraft shells dotted the sky as the enemy passed above each ship in the protective ring. The pom pom of the cruiser and destroyer five-inch and forty millimeter guns echoed across the waves, like a poorly choreographed fireworks display. It seemed out of place above the beauty of the rolling azure seas and the long frothing wakes of the swaying ships.

  “Torpedo bombers off the port bow!” someone exclaimed.

  Giles looked to see two clusters of planes emerge from the clouds about five miles distant. They descended rapidly and did not pull up until they were hugging the waves. One plane was so low that it nearly clipped the masts of a destroyer in its path. The destroyer instantly opened fire with every gun that could bear, turning two of the torpedo bombers into balls of flame that quickly fell into the sea.

  The remaining planes – Giles counted six – maneuvered into two tight wedge formations, and both formations steered straight for an imaginary point in the ocean a few hundred yards ahead of the Antietam’s bow. Their lethal cargoes were clearly visible now, slung ominously beneath their bellies. The two thousand pound payloads made the torpedo bombers slow and unwieldy, but their pilots seemed to have accepted this fact. They made no attempt to evade the fusillade of anti-aircraft fire, instead driving straight for their release point. Every gun in the task group, including those on the Antietam, now turned the sky around the six planes into an uninhabitable space. Tracer rounds came at them from every direction like an angry swarm of fireflies, while the sea below danced with a hundred geysers. Three of the six planes were brought down by this withering fire, one sent spinning wildly after its wing struck a towering column of water.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Giles saw sparks fly near one of Antietam’s Bofors mounts. In the blink of an eye the mount was shattered and the two men working it were killed, their bodies mangled beyond recognition. At first Giles thought the enemy planes had hit the mount with their wing-mounted cannons, but then he saw Packard snatch up the phone and shout into it angrily.

  “We’re taking fire from the McKean, damn it! Someone tell that son of a bitch to check his fire!”

  Evidently, an overly eager gunner on the destroyer had gotten carried away and had neglected the pre-ordained fields of fire that were vital to keeping the ships in the fleet from harming one another.

  The three surviving bombers were only a few thousand yards away now. They released their torpedoes almost simultaneously, the sleek, gray weapons dropping into the sea like captive porpoises released into the wild. By the time the finger-like wakes bubbled to the surface, the Antietam had already started turning hard to starboard. Every man watched the effervescent paths of the unseen killers with trepidation, working out in their heads whether the eight hundred foot-long, thirty-thousand-ton carrier would be able to turn in time. They all breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Antietam answered her rudder smartly and placed the sinister white lines off her port quarter. The torpedoes would now parallel the carrier’s course and pass harmlessly up the port side.

  Several gunners began firing at the torpedo wakes, but this was quickly halted by a stern reprimand over the intercom circuit from Antietam’s gunnery officer, warning that any disturbance around the speeding torpedoes might jostle them back onto an impact course.

  The tension on the flag bridge abated for a moment, but it did not last long. Someone switched the channel of the intercom speaker in the overhead, and it came to life with the excited chatter of the fighter pilots now engaging the enemy above the clouds.

  “Tally-ho! Zekes! Ten o’clock!”

  “Get him, Butch!”

  “Look at’em burn!”

  As Giles and the others on the flag bridge listened, the fleet guns fell ominously silent. They could not fire into the clouds for risk of hitting friendly planes, and so they had nothing to do but point their barrels skyward and wait as the battle was fought out of sight. Periodically, a streak of tracer rounds would emanate from the gray barrier, and on four separate occasions flaming planes fell nearly vertically into the sea, leaving behind thick ribbons of black smoke to mark their descent.

  “Our boys are really giving it to them up there,” Packard said assuredly to no one in particular, but Giles knew it was meant as encouragement to counteract the effect of the radio chatter which seemed to grow more heated with each passing moment.

  “That one’s rolling over!” a pilot’s voice said agitatedly. “He’s starting to dive! Get him, Tex! Get him!”

  “Maple 4, Maple Leader,” the same voice said a few seconds later, this time much calmer. “Nice shooting, Tex. He’s gone to meet his ancestors.”

  “Maple Leader, this is Maple 5, where’d those other two go? I lost’em in the clouds!”

  “I can’t see them either. Shit!” After a brief pause, the squadron leader’s voice came on again. “Eskimo, this is Maple Leader, two Vals got through! I repeat, a possible two Vals inbound!”

  Every eye on the flag bridge turned skyward. The enemy planes now had the advantage. They could hug the bottom edge of the cloud cover, popping out at brief intervals to check their position relative to their target. The glimpse of exposure might easily be missed by the searching gun crews. A heartbeat later, this was confirmed when two enemy planes screamed out of the gray mass, diving on the carrier at a near fifty-degree angle. They were perfectly lined up for their attack run, and they accelerated like angry wasps, each with a single bomb slung between its bulbous landing gear. Every gun on the Antietam opened fire, instantly filling the air with deadly metal. Black puffs of smoke marked the detonations of proximity fuses. The onslaught seemed too intense for the diving planes to possibly survive, but neither seemed affected by it, and both co
ntinued their deadly dives unabated.

  It seemed almost unreal, Giles thought, like some choreographed air show, as he watched the two bombs detach, and the planes attempt to pull up. The control surfaces of one plane must have been severely damaged by the anti-aircraft fire, because it rolled-over and began an uncontrolled spiral straight towards the sea. Giles did not see the fate of the second plane. He was too busy diving for cover along with every other man on the flag bridge once it became clear to all that both bombs had been dropped with excellent precision and were heading straight for the carrier.

  As he crouched, Giles heard men shouting in sudden alarm. This was quickly overcome by an enormous blast, much louder than that of the anti-aircraft guns. The deck beneath him shook violently and he felt a pressure wave pass him as debris of all kind ricocheted around the room. He felt another blast a millisecond later, but this one was not nearly as powerful as the first.

  When he finally opened his eyes and his hearing returned, the whole bridge seemed abnormally silent. The guns had stopped. A choking mixture of metallic grit and smoke filled the air around him, restricting his vision and leaving him disoriented. Shadowy figures moved just out of reach, as if he had been transported to some World War One battlefield after a gas attack. By the time the ocean wind had carried away the smoke, Giles had come to his senses enough to look himself over. His uniform looked as though it had been used to sweep out the inside of a chimney, and he could taste grit in his mouth, but he was uninjured.

  Packard and several others were by the rail, leaning over the side and talking to someone on the ship’s bridge one deck below. After Giles had stumbled over to join them, he could not help but gasp audibly at the extent of the damage. A jagged hole marred the middle of the flight deck, belching smoke like one of the ship’s stacks. Smoke spewed from a hundred smaller holes around it as fires burned on the decks below. Sirens blared as crews raced to the scene with pressurized hoses and instantly began unleashing a torrent of water into the gorge left by the Japanese bomb. As Packard discussed the damage with the Antietam’s captain, Giles noticed two sailors on the flag bridge with him, carefully lifting a severed arm from the deck only a few feet away. The blue sleeve indicated that it had belonged to one of the plane handlers on the flight deck below. Giles then realized that he had stepped over the object only moments before, his subconscious mind rejecting what it was. The two sailors solemnly wrapped the grisly object in a canvas sheet, and then left the bridge without saying a word. Down below, another corpse was added to an ever-lengthening line of bodies being laid out on an undamaged portion of the flight deck.