If there was more than one carrier, each pilot would select the best target of opportunity presented to him. Fieberling strongly urged them to wait until they were close enough to the carrier to guarantee a hit.
As the approach of dawn slowly brought the other Avengers into clearer focus against the eastern sky, Fieberling continued to weigh his decision. He had been trained by Waldron to fight alone if necessary. This might be one of those times. Once they were airborne, his pilots would follow him wherever he led them. More than anything else, he wanted to give them the best chance to complete their mission and make it home safely.
USS HORNET
TORPEDO SQUADRON EIGHT
0440
After the Torpedo Eight pilots had eaten breakfast in the wardroom, Fred Mears thought they seemed a lot more animated, cracking jokes and fooling around in their usual way. A few minutes later, the keys of the Teletype suddenly began clicking. Everyone stopped what they were doing to watch the big reflector screen.
It wasn’t the news they were hoping for. The laconic message simply stated that Navy PBYs and Army bombers had attacked an enemy force southwest of Midway. The pilots knew by then that it had to be the Japanese invasion force escorting the troop transports. The enemy striking force containing their big carriers would be coming from the northwest.
The plan was to destroy those carriers while their air groups were off attacking Midway, and before they could return to the ships. If the ambush was successful, hundreds of Japanese aircraft would be forced to ditch in the sea. Without air cover, the rest of their armada would be ripe for the plucking.
Glancing at his watch, John Waldron said, “It’s almost dawn. This is when they will attack . . . if they’re coming.”
The pilots waited for another message to come through, but the Teletype machine remained stubbornly silent. Eventually, everyone began to settle down again. Rusty Kenyon was compiling a collection of limericks, and asked if any of them knew a good one. Fred Mears replied that he would be glad to contribute several, and began:
There was a young girl from Madras
Who had a beautiful ass,
Not rounded and pink,
As you probably think,
But with long ears, a tail, and eats grass.
Rusty was furiously trying to write down all of the words as Fred spoke, but had to ask him to repeat it. Then Mears started on a new one. The Skipper came over to join them. Grinning, he began to recite one of his own favorites. Rusty copied the new limericks onto a single sheet of paper and put it in the pocket of his flight suit.
EASTERN ISLAND, MIDWAY ATOLL
TORPEDO EIGHT DETACHMENT
0555
The eastern sky slowly turned a lurid orange.
Still sitting in his open cockpit, Bert tried not to think about what might be waiting for them out there. It didn’t matter anyhow. He had joined the club. It was time to pay his dues. And it was impossible for him to believe that whatever the situation they found out there, he couldn’t find a way to deal with it.
He remembered when he was going through training and the subject came up about the Japanese fighting capabilities in the air. One of the instructors had said, “Forget them. They’re nothing. We’ll take care of them in no time.”
But that instructor had never met a Japanese pilot in combat. Bert had never talked to anyone who had actually gone up against a Japanese plane. It was all completely new.
Across the field, ground-support people were doing last-minute checks on several of the Marine combat aircraft. Suddenly, a siren began wailing and he looked up to see a jeep racing toward them along the narrow apron at the edge of the runway. It stopped with a squeal of brakes at Fieberling’s Avenger.
A Marine officer jumped out and scrambled up onto his wing. Bert could see them talking animatedly, and then the officer jumped off. A few moments later Fieberling’s engine fired.
Another Marine suddenly materialized at the side of Bert’s plane.
“Enemy force at 320 degrees, one hundred fifty miles,” he shouted up at him.
Lightly pressing the electric starter, Bert brought his engine to life. Lieutenant Fieberling was already taxiing forward, and Bert followed him out onto the runway. Charlie Brannon taxied along behind them, followed by Ozzie Gaynier, Vic Lewis, and Darrel Woodside.
The Marine fighter planes were taking off. Fieberling had to wait until the last of the twenty-four Buffaloes and Wildcats had climbed into the sky. Then it was their turn.
Bert listened to the comforting roar of his Wright Cyclone engine as he cut loose behind Fieberling down the runway leading north. In the tail section, Harry Ferrier hadn’t bothered to put on a flight suit. He was wearing dungarees, a white T-shirt, and a blue baseball cap. Gazing through the Plexiglas, he watched the concrete surface of the runway separate from the rear wheel as their plane soared into the air.
The two sections of Avengers joined up in their designated formation, with Ozzie Gaynier bringing the second section into right echelon about a hundred yards behind Charlie Brannon, who was flying on Fieberling’s right wing. Bert was on the left.
They climbed through the brightening sky to an altitude of two thousand feet and leveled off. When Bert looked back toward Midway, the B-26 Marauders and the mixed group of dive-bombers were still taking off from Eastern Island. Based on the plan, they were now supposed to circle at the rendezvous point until the rest of the air group joined up.
Instead, Lieutenant Fieberling turned straight onto a course of 320 degrees true, the heading that would take them to the Japanese fleet. Without any further signal, Fieberling goosed his speed up to one hundred sixty knots and led the Avengers northwest toward the distant horizon.
They had only been in the air a few minutes when the voice of Jay Manning broke in on Bert’s intercom.
“They’re hitting Midway, Skipper,” he called out.
Behind them, the first air squadrons of the Japanese striking force had begun bombing the atoll. From his turret, Manning watched the explosions burst on Midway as tracers from the Marine antiaircraft batteries shot up at the Japanese planes.
Bert suddenly spotted a flight of aircraft speeding toward Midway. They had big red meatballs on their wings. One of them broke away to make a direct pass at him, but it veered off at the last moment without opening fire.
Fieberling kept the formation steady on its course, leading them up toward the scattered cloud cover at four thousand feet. As they were climbing, Bert glanced to his right. Charlie Brannon was over there grinning at him through his side windshield. They had just survived their first encounter with the enemy.
Bert grinned back. In perfect harmony, they raised their closed fists at one another in mocking tribute to Swede Larsen’s “attack” signal. Then they each extended their middle fingers.
NORTHEAST OF MIDWAY ATOLL
USS ENTERPRISE
FLAG BRIDGE
0607
Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance, the commander of Task Force 16, which included the Hornet and the Enterprise, had been standing near the radio loudspeaker tuned to the frequency used by the PBY search pilots hunting for the Japanese fleet.
At 0603, he heard the startling message that two Japanese carriers had been sighted, and they were heading for Midway. While his excited staff began plotting the relative positions of the two fleets on their navigation charts, he waited in a corner.
Short and slender, he was dressed for the battle in the same informal uniform he had adopted since coming aboard the Enterprise a week earlier. Black shoes, khaki trousers, khaki shirt with the sleeves rolled up, no tie.
Prior to leaving Pearl Harbor, Admiral Nimitz had issued instructions on how Spruance was to employ his forces. The most important goal was to destroy the Japanese carrier force, but Nimitz had also warned, “You will be governed by the principle of calculated risk, which you shall interpret to mean the avoidance of exposure of your force without good prospect of inflicting, as a result of such exposure, gr
eater damage to the enemy.”
The meaning was clear. Under no circumstances was he to lose the carriers.
If Spruance decided to be cautious, he might deploy only a portion of his air squadrons in the first attack against the Japanese carriers, holding a reserve force in readiness in case of a reversal. If he decided to be bold, he could launch every available aircraft from his two carriers, and face the consequences. It was not in his nature to be bold.
Since coming aboard the Enterprise, Spruance had been carrying with him a small rolled-up navigational chart called a “maneuvering board.” None of the members of the staff knew what was recorded on it, if anything, but many assumed it held secret navigational data provided by naval intelligence. Although the admiral took it everywhere with him, he never unfurled it.
Spruance was about to make one of the most important decisions in the Pacific war. He waited as the air operations officers continued to use their metal dividers and parallel rulers on the big chart tables, completing their calculation of the location of the Japanese carriers in relation to the American task force. When they were done, Spruance finally unfurled his little maneuvering board.
One of the staff officers was shocked to see that it was blank. Without asking for the air staff’s navigational solution, the admiral calmly asked them to repeat the ranges and compass bearings they had used to make their calculations. After taking a few moments to plot the bearings on the maneuvering board, he used his thumb and forefinger to roughly estimate the distance between the two fleets.
“Launch the attack,” he said in a soft voice.
The time had come to roll the dice. Spruance had decided to commit every available plane under his command to the attack, one hundred twenty fighters, dive-bombers, and torpedo planes from the Hornet and the Enterprise.
To the south, Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, who was in tactical command of both carrier task forces from the USS Yorktown, was preparing to launch his own air squadrons.
Spruance was taking the extraordinary gamble that the rest of the Japanese carriers in the striking force were steaming in close proximity to the two that had been sighted by his patrol planes. If he was wrong, all hope of surprise would be lost, and the second group of enemy carriers would be free to launch a counterstrike against his badly outnumbered force.
NORTHEAST OF MIDWAY ATOLL
USS HORNET
TORPEDO SQUADRON EIGHT
0610
In the officers’ wardroom, Rusty Kenyon had just finished a portion of baked beans, his favorite item on the breakfast menu, when all of the klaxons and bells in the ship seemed to go off together.
“General quarters!” came an earsplitting voice over the ship’s loudspeakers. “Flight quarters! All pilots report to your ready rooms!”
Rusty ran back to Ready Room Four in time to see the reflector screen over the Teletype flash the message:
MANY ENEMY PLANES HEADED FOR MIDWAY BEARING 320 DEGREES.
As they all stood riveted in front of the screen, the Teletype continued clattering out messages:
ALL FIGHTER PILOTS MAN PLANES ON FLIGHT DECK . . . HORNET BASE COURSE 240 DEGREES.
The Hornet had more than doubled its speed and was heading southwest. Over the loudspeaker a voice declared, “The enemy main body is now attempting to take Midway. We are heading toward Midway to intercept and destroy them.”
Soon the Teletype began chattering again.
PILOTS OF ALL SCOUT BOMBERS AND TORPEDO PLANES ON FLIGHT DECK, EXCEPT SQUADRON COMMANDERS, MAN YOUR PLANES. SQUADRON COMMANDERS AND GROUP COMMANDERS REMAIN IN READY ROOMS FOR LATEST INSTRUCTIONS.
Inside Ready Room Four, it was controlled pandemonium as the pilots rushed to gather the plotting boards, helmets, goggles, and survival gear stored in the compartments under their cushioned seats. While putting on the flight equipment, they kept their eyes intent on the messages streaming across the reflector screen.
Another message quickly followed.
CORRECTION . . . DO NOT MAN PLANES UNTIL DIRECTED.
A groan of frustration greeted the new order. As the pilots waited for another message to head for the flight deck, the same modulated voice blared out from the ship’s loudspeakers.
“We intend to launch planes at 0700 to attack enemy while their planes are returning from Midway. We will close to about one hundred miles of enemy position.”
Standing at the front of the ready room, Waldron gave the pilots their final instructions, telling them that he thought the Japanese carrier task forces would “swing together” and retire just far enough so that they could retrieve their planes from the first strike. He told them not to worry about navigating, just to follow him.
“Maybe it’s the Sioux in me but I have a hunch the Japanese ships will be in a different position than our reports have them,” he said at the end. “I won’t hesitate to run this squadron dry of gas in an effort to find them. In that case, we’ll all sit down in the water together and have a nice little picnic.
“I have no doubt that we’ll be back here by noon,” said the Skipper, “but if we find ourselves alone and outnumbered by the enemy planes on the way into attack, we’ll keep boring in toward the carrier. If there is only one man left I want that man to take his pickle in and get a hit.”
With a sardonic grin, Moose Moore turned to Tex and said, “You’ll never get a hit, Gay. You couldn’t hit a bull in the tail with a six-foot rake.”
Stung, Tex answered, “I’ll get a hit.”
Hal Ellison leaned over and extended his hand to the Texan.
“Good luck,” he said.
“Same to you,” said Gay, shaking his hand.
Ensign Hank Carey, a fighter pilot aboard the Hornet who was not scheduled to fly in the first launch, came into the ready room to wish good hunting to several pilots who were his close friends. He heard Waldron’s dramatic last words to the squadron.
There was a period of silence. Carey heard Waldron say, “Godspeed.” A few moments later, the order came that they had been waiting for all morning.
“Pilots, man all planes,” read the reflector screen.
As they crowded toward the door, another order came through the loudspeaker for the air squadron commanders to immediately report to the bridge. Pete Mitscher was waiting there when his four air squadron commanders assembled for the hasty conference. The first one to arrive was Pat Mitchell, the skipper of the fighter squadron.
Mitchell had gone up to the bridge resolved to make one more attempt to convince Mitscher that his ten Wildcats should fly cover for the torpedo planes. It would be the last chance for Mitchell to make his case.
Mitchell was no smooth talker, but he knew Mitscher respected him. He had handpicked him for this fighter command. And like Mitscher, Pat was all Navy. He had graduated from Annapolis in 1927. His brother Bill was Annapolis ’24. The newly promoted Admiral Mitscher was standing with the members of his air staff when Mitchell came up and saluted.
Without preamble, he requested that his squadron be assigned to fly cover for Waldron’s Devastators. There it was. He had said it. Not just part of his fighter squadron, or even half of it. All of them. Without a pause, Mitscher shook his head and told Mitchell he would stay up with the bombers. His tone made it clear that the decision was final.
“You’ll protect Commander Ring and the dive-bombers,” Mitscher told him as the other squadron skippers arrived together on the bridge.
Along with Ring, the assembled group included Mitscher’s air officer, Apollo Soucek, and his operations officer, John Foster, as well as Walt Rodee and Ruff Johnson, who commanded the dive-bomber squadrons, and the bridge watch officers.
With Mitscher looking on, Commander Ring said that he was planning to fly a course of 265 degrees, which was almost due west, and more than 30 degrees to the north of the Japanese fleet’s last reported position, 234 degrees southwest.
John Waldron spoke up in immediate disagreement. He proposed a course of 240 degrees, which took into account the
last fleet sighting, as well as the possibility that the Japanese had swung back to the north after launching their first strike.
In response, Mitscher told Waldron and the others to follow the course Ring had given them. Ensign Fred Mamer, one of the watch officers, stood transfixed as he listened to the heated argument.
Northwest of Midway Atoll
Torpedo Eight Detachment
0655
The six Avengers of Torpedo Eight flew northwest across an empty cobalt sea. Lieutenant Fieberling never deviated from his base course of 320 degrees. They remained at an altitude of four thousand feet.
The Marine back at Midway had said the reported distance to the enemy fleet was one hundred fifty miles. At their cruising speed of one hundred sixty knots, they should have sighted it already. Maybe someone had made a mistake.
From his position at the far left of the formation, Bert suddenly spotted the wake of a ship dead ahead of him. The ship was moving southeast, almost directly toward them. Bert had studied all of the recognition profiles of Japanese warships. This was no warship. It looked more like a transport. A piece of cake, he thought. Then he looked past the transport to the northeast.
Japanese warships covered the whole expanse of ocean as far as he could see. Bert had never seen a fleet before, not even an American one. This looked like the whole goddamned Japanese navy.
A battleship was in the first group. The damn thing was so huge it couldn’t be anything else. Beyond the battleship was a big aircraft carrier. A second carrier was steaming along right beside it. They were surrounded by a phalanx of cruisers and destroyers.
Fieberling had led them straight to the enemy. Six torpedo planes against the whole Japanese striking force.
“Enemy fighters!” Jay Manning called out on the intercom from his turret gun.
Suddenly, the Zeroes were all around them, too many to count. Bert watched them hurtling past from every direction, high and low. They were astonishingly maneuverable, and so many that they seemed to get in each other’s way.
A Dawn Like Thunder Page 11