A Dawn Like Thunder

by Robert J. Mrazek

  A Zero skidded into his field of fire as it attacked Fieberling’s Avenger. Bert pressed the firing button on his thirty-caliber nose gun. It didn’t fire. He tried again. Nothing happened.

  Behind him, he heard Jay Manning open fire with his fifty-caliber machine gun, raking the first flight of Zeroes as they made darting passes between the six torpedo planes.

  Underneath the tail, Harry Ferrier clenched the hand grips on the thirty-caliber tunnel gun and waited for a target. Through the Plexiglas window, he could see Zeroes flying above and below the three Avengers behind them, firing quick bursts as they sped into range.

  Bullets started hitting the metal skin of the fuselage on both sides of him. It sounded like the clatter of hard rain on a tin roof. As Harry waited for a chance to fire, his left hand was knocked free from the machine gun. The grazing bullet felt like a red-hot iron on his wrist. Ignoring the pain, he gripped the handle again.

  A few seconds later, Jay Manning stopped firing up in the turret. Harry turned around to glance back up into the fuselage. The automatic turret had stowed itself, which always happened when the gunner’s hands were no longer gripping the machine gun. A “dead man’s switch” automatically brought the turret gun to its position facing aft, from which it offered the least air resistance.

  Jay was hanging limp in his safety harness.

  A twenty-millimeter cannon round had hit him squarely in the chest and blown him apart. Until Harry saw the crimson river flowing down into the radio compartment, he had no idea just how much blood there was in a man’s body.

  Through the tiny side window, he watched another plane overtaking and passing them. It was on fire. It happened so fast he had no way of knowing whether it was a Zero or one of the Avengers.

  Bert watched Langdon Fieberling put his nose over and begin to dive.

  Opening his own throttle to full power, Bert went after him. Still in tight formation, the Avengers hurtled downward at three hundred miles an hour toward the surface of the sea. As if they were part of the American formation, the Japanese Zeroes pursued them all of the way down.

  Fieberling pulled out of the screaming dive at two hundred feet and headed directly for the first of the Japanese carriers. When he opened his bomb bay doors, the rest of them did, too. It cut down on speed, but in the event of a hydraulic failure, they would still be able to drop their torpedoes.

  Bert was on the left, Charlie on the right. Glancing back, Bert saw that the other three were still in the same tight formation behind them. Lieutenant Commander Waldron would have been proud.

  Then the air was filled with tracer bullets again, constant flashes, and Bert’s plane started taking more hits from the maneuvering Zeroes. He could feel the dull thump of machine gun bullets slamming into the armor plating that protected his back.

  A cannon shell exploded behind the cockpit and shrapnel suddenly burst through the side of the windshield. He felt a fierce rush of air swirl around his face and blood began spurting from his neck, quickly coating the instrument panel with a shiny red film.

  A Zero slid into attack position behind him again, and the pilot fired a long burst with his machine guns. Kneeling backward in the tunnel, Harry was about to fire at the Zero when the tail wheel of the Avenger dropped in front of him, blocking his field of fire and making his gun useless.

  He immediately realized that the plane’s hydraulic system had been shot out, causing the wheel to drop. Harry could hear the bullets from the Zero behind them tearing through the metal skin of the tail compartment. He felt a hot stab of pain in his head, and fell away.

  Although Bert was holding the control stick steady, the Avenger began to drop out of the formation. He attempted to regain altitude by pulling back on the control stick, but it was limp in his hand. The cables to the elevator controls had obviously been shot away.

  A spread of machine gun bullets shattered his instrument panel, and one more red ball of fire burst on his left wing. They were going down. With his hydraulics gone and the elevator cables severed, there was no way the plane could stay up in the air.

  Veering out of formation, he took a quick glimpse back at the others. They were all still there, Charlie Brannon, Ozzie Gaynier, Darrel, and Vic. Lieutenant Fieberling was leading them straight toward the nearest Japanese carrier.

  Northeast of Midway

  USS Hornet

  0714

  On the flight deck, the takeoffs proceeded with almost agonizing slowness. The first launch had begun at 0700 with eighteen Wildcat fighters. Ten were going on the mission. Eight would remain above the carrier to provide protective air cover in the event of an enemy attack.

  The fighters were followed up by thirty-four dive-bombers. While they were climbing off the deck, the ten fighters going on the attack mission began clawing their way up to twenty thousand feet. The Dauntless dive-bombers went after them.

  Under Mitscher’s orders, Waldron’s torpedo planes were slated to take off last after the dive-bombers. Six of them had already been brought up from the hangar deck to the flight deck in preparation for takeoff.

  Tex Gay’s Devastator was one of the first in line. Lee Marona, Gay’s plane captain, was standing alongside the aircraft when Torpedo Eight’s pilots came out on the flight deck to board their planes.

  Just twenty years old, Marona was a strapping six-footer from northern Alabama who had turned down a football scholarship from Auburn to join the Navy. During basic training, he had put up with a lot of ribbing about his birth name, which was actually General Lee Marona. He had worked all night to make sure Gay’s plane was ready for combat.

  Farther down in the line, Abbie Abercrombie climbed into the cockpit of his Devastator after wrestling a parachute onto his broad back. His plane captain, Bill Tunstall, helped to strap him in. Abercrombie checked his instruments as another machinist’s mate cranked the engine. It roared into life.

  “Good luck, sir,” said Tunstall.

  “Thanks, Bill,” said Abercrombie. “See you in Kansas City.”

  Climbing off the wing, Tunstall walked back to the tail section to say good-bye to Bernie Phelps, Abbie’s young radioman-gunner. Bernie was his best friend on the ship. They had enjoyed some great leaves together back at Pearl Harbor.

  Bernie was holding his wallet out in his hand as Tunstall came up.

  “Hey Bill, take this,” he said. “If I don’t get back, send it to my mother.”

  Tunstall didn’t want Bernie to think he had any doubts about his coming back.

  “Aw, Bernie, you’ll be back in a few hours. Forget it.”

  Bernie put the wallet back into the pocket of his flight suit.

  As Tex Gay’s plane was being pushed into position for takeoff, he had a moment of sudden panic. Gazing toward the bow, it didn’t seem possible there was enough room to get up in the air, particularly with a two-thousand-pound torpedo sticking out of the belly. He motioned the plane pushers to shove his plane back a little farther toward the stern.

  At the edge of the flight deck, the takeoff control officer began rotating his colored signal flag above his head, which was the sign for Tex to begin revving his engine to full power while holding the brakes and keeping the tail down. As Tex waited to release the brakes, the signal officer gave him the cut signal.

  After Tex throttled back, the TCO yelled up to him, “Twelve-minute delay.”

  From the cockpit, Tex could see the Skipper standing near an open hatchway at the base of the island superstructure beneath the bridge. He looked fit to be tied. Tex watched him stalk over to one of the metal-covered phone units that connected to the bridge.

  Far above them, the eighteen fighters and thirty-four dive-bombers were still climbing up to their assigned altitudes. A nervous Tex Gay wondered whether they would wait for the Devastators to join the group formation.

  Northwest of Midway

  Japanese Striking Force Flagship Carrier Akagi

  0715

  Through his binoculars, Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, c
ommanding the Japanese striking force, watched the attack of the five remaining Avengers from the bridge of his flagship, the carrier Akagi.

  The torpedo planes were heading straight toward the carrier Hiryu, which was steaming southeast in a line parallel to his flagship. Both carriers had begun turning to port so that their starboard batteries could bring to bear a full barrage of antiaircraft guns against the Americans. Several other warships had already opened fire.

  Seeing the black bursts of smoke, the swarm of Zeroes that had been attacking the Avengers immediately darted away to safety. Exploding antiaircraft shells began blooming black in the sky all around the torpedo planes. Still they came on.

  Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, the pilot who had led the Japanese carrier attack against Pearl Harbor and who was recovering from appendicitis, watched from the Akagi as the Americans continued to press home their attack in the face of such overwhelming firepower.

  Excited shouts from the Akagi’s lookouts warned that behind the five torpedo planes were four more American aircraft, also coming from the south. They were the B-26 Marauders.

  Suddenly, one of the Avengers burst into flames. It cartwheeled into the sea and created a great geyser of foam. Moments later, Fuchida heard a spontaneous roar of exultation erupt from the hundreds of sailors standing at their battle stations.

  Still, the four remaining Avengers came on through the hail of bursting shells.

  Several of the Japanese Zero pilots boldly decided to brave the ongoing antiaircraft barrage, and sped in to make more passes at the remaining planes. One by one, the Americans began to fall. Through his binoculars, Fuchida saw two of them launch their torpedoes before they were hit, but the planes were still so far away from the Hiryu that the ship easily changed course to avoid them.

  When the last Avenger became a flaming torch in the sky, another exultant roar swept across the flight decks of the two carriers, as if the Japanese sailors were enjoying a spectacle at the Coliseum in Rome.

  They were gone. Ozzie Gaynier and Darrel Woodside. Vic Lewis and Charlie Brannon. And Lieutenant Langdon Kellogg Fieberling. He had chosen to follow his own course and had paid the ultimate price. The eternal sea closed over the small wisps of smoke that marked their final resting places.

  Langdon Fieberling had lost his terrible gamble.

  Or had he?

  On his flagship, Akagi, Admiral Nagumo took pause. Fifteen minutes earlier, he had been handed a radio report from Lieutenant Tomonaga, who commanded the first wave of Japanese bombers that had attacked Midway.

  “There is need for a second attack,” was his message.

  The primary objective of the first air strike had been to fully eliminate the American air strength on Midway. Clearly, Lieutenant Tomonaga did not feel the task had been accomplished. Watching the attack by American torpedo planes that had just unfolded before his eyes, Nagumo could understand why. The decadent Americans weren’t supposed to fight like this.

  He had been impressed by their almost samurailike ferocity. And hard on their heels had been the equally audacious charge by four B-26 Marauders. One of the Army planes had nearly struck the flag deck of the Akagi before it dove into the sea.

  Now he had to make his first critical decision of the battle. Nagumo’s superior, Admiral Yamamoto, had specifically ordered him to keep a strong reserve of his combat aircraft armed with antiship torpedoes to retaliate against any American carriers that might be lurking within striking range of the Japanese fleet.

  Yet, Nagumo’s search planes had been in the air for almost three hours searching the sky to the east for an American task force, and they had reported no sightings up to that point. If he was to accomplish his primary mission, Nagumo needed to win control of the air over Midway, even if it meant taking the risk that there were American carriers in the vicinity.

  At 0716, he ordered that the ship-killing torpedoes be removed from the reserve aircraft on the Akagi and the Kaga, and that the planes be rearmed with bombs. It would take almost an hour to accomplish the task, but they would then be able to take part in the second bombing strike against Midway to eliminate its air defenses once and for all.

  Northwest of Midway

  The Last Avenger

  0716

  He was going down. Before he hit the water, there was only one thing Bert Earnest wanted to do, and that was to sink at least one of the warships still firing at him. He could never reach the carriers now, but glancing off to the left he saw what looked like a Japanese cruiser, obviously one of their escort vessels. The ship was firing at him with its antiaircraft batteries.

  Kicking the rudder, he turned the crippled plane toward the warship, and punched the switches to launch his two-thousand-pound torpedo. He had expected an immediate surge in speed after it was gone, but there wasn’t any. Not sure the torpedo had dropped, he pulled the emergency release lever.

  The riddled plane was losing altitude quickly now, down to a hundred feet, then seventy-five, fifty, twenty-five, twenty. Tightening his shoulder straps, Bert was preparing to ditch when he did something purely reflexive, something he always did when bringing an Avenger in for a landing.

  He reached down to adjust the trim tabs that were controlled by the little four-inch wheel next to the cockpit seat. By turning the wheel with his left hand, he could help to offset the Avenger’s nose-heavy tendencies whenever he landed.

  As he turned the wheel, the nose of the plane gently leaped up in front of him. When he continued to roll the tab wheel, the plane actually started to regain altitude. This meant that the trim tab cables, which were separate from the elevator control cables, were still intact. A surge of hope went through him as he realized he might still be able to fly the plane.

  The Japanese cruiser he had aimed his torpedo at was no longer firing at him and he quickly discovered why. The enemy warship didn’t want to hit the Zeroes that had come back to finish him off. They took turns firing short bursts into him with each pass.

  Keeping one hand on the stick to control direction, and the other hand on the trim tab wheel, Bert felt the Avenger slowly gain altitude as he aimed it northwest away from the Japanese fleet. Although he was now flying at full throttle, there was no way to know how fast he was going because the air speed gauge had been shot out along with the rest of his instruments. With all the holes in the wings and fuselage, maybe the bird would fly faster, he thought.

  He knew his neck was still bleeding, because the wind kept fogging blood around the cockpit, but so far he didn’t feel faint. While the Zeroes kept firing at him, he tried everything he knew to avoid the coup de grâce, first side-slipping the plane, then jinking back and forth. He pulled back hard on the throttle to throw off their aim, and then gunned it forward again. The two Japanese pilots kept making their passes, firing into the shredded fuselage to either kill him or the engine.

  Perhaps another minute went by. He felt another spray of bullets thud into the armor plate behind his back. The passing seconds seemed like an eternity. Wouldn’t they ever run out of ammunition? Didn’t they have to go back at some point to protect their goddamned fleet? Couldn’t they be low on gas?

  And then they were gone.

  He was alone above the sea.

  There was no time to ponder why the Japanese pilots had finally granted him a reprieve. He forced himself to focus on what to do next. He hadn’t heard from Manning or Ferrier since the Zeroes had first attacked. Bert called them on the intercom. There was no response. With so many things shot out, he couldn’t be sure if the intercom was even working. He tried again. Nothing.

  He had never felt so tired in his life. Struggling to keep his mind clear, he paused to take stock. The wound under his jaw had stopped spurting, although he could feel hot warmth continuing to flow down his neck. He decided it couldn’t be worse than a deep flesh wound or he would already be dead.

  More than anything he wanted to sleep. Sleep was not an option. He needed to get the Avenger all of the way back to Midway. Checking his compa
ss, he saw that the gauge was frozen in place. Turning around to look back at the tail, he saw why. The compass wire was attached to a flux gate on the vertical fin, and it was riddled with holes.

  With the hydraulic system shot out, he couldn’t close the bomb bay doors. That started him wondering again whether their torpedo had actually dropped. Ferrier and Manning were the only ones who could confirm if it had by looking through a small glass plate into the bomb bay section. Bert didn’t want to think about trying to land the plane with his hydraulics out and a two-thousand-pound torpedo hanging from their belly.

  All of the instruments were gone: the gas gauge, air speed indicator, altimeter, oil pressure gauge, everything. He continued to roll the trim tabs until the Avenger had climbed to about three thousand feet.

  For the first time since they had attacked the Japanese carriers, he was able to focus on how he might actually bring the plane home. He had no idea what had happened to Fieberling and the others, but he couldn’t go back looking for them.

  Midway had to be his ultimate destination. As far as he knew, it was the only landing place within a thousand miles. That led to the next problem. He had no firm idea where Midway was.

  Lieutenant Fieberling had brought them up from the southeast. The Zeroes had driven him even farther northwest. That meant the whole Japanese fleet stood between him and the tiny atoll. By the time he got there, if he got there, it was possible that they might have already taken it, but the only other alternative was to ditch in the middle of the Pacific. The chances of being picked up by a rescue plane seemed even more remote.

  His best guess was that he must be at least two hundred miles, maybe more, from Midway. At least the engine was running fine, even with all the punishment the plane had absorbed. He would have to get back by dead reckoning. Live reckoning sounded better.

  The sun had been up less than three hours. From its position off to the east, he knew which direction was south, and a southerly course would hopefully keep him away from Japanese planes. He would use the scattered clouds for cover wherever he found them.