1942

by Robert Conroy

  Even with the advantage of mobility, the drive took four hours instead of one. There were several times when Jake had to hide the motorcycle behind a tree while Japanese planes flew low overhead in a manner reminiscent of their attack on Hickam the preceding December.

  Schofield Barracks was the midpoint of his journey, and he arrived during another raid, which delayed him further. This time a Jap fighter got too close, and he cheered lustily when it was blown from the sky by American antiaircraft guns.

  When he left, however, several buildings were burning, and one of the guns that had destroyed the Zero had been strafed, its crew shot to a bloody pulp.

  Compared with the ride to Schofield, the short haul to Haleiwa was fairly easy, and he made it to the American coastal defenses without further incident.

  Jake was not impressed by what he saw. Just under four thousand men had been allocated a front about six miles wide. The defenses were anchored on the northern ends of the Koolau and Waianae mountain ranges. These peaks ran on either side of the island, and in the fertile valley between them was the road from Haleiwa to Schofield to Pearl Harbor. The mountains were more sharp hills and knifelike ridges, and the valley gradually widened until it was twenty miles across at Pearl Harbor.

  Trenches had been dug and pillboxes constructed out of sandbags, but where were the mountains of barbed wire that would stop enemy infantry, and where were the big guns that would pound Japanese warships? The largest artillery pieces Jake saw were several batteries of 155 mm howitzers, and they weren’t well dug in or protected against counterfire from Japanese warships.

  Jake knew several of the officers and asked for their assessment. He was told that, because of the Japanese air attacks interdicting the road from Schofield to Hickam, the brass were now reconsidering their earlier assumptions regarding a landing at Haleiwa. Some were convinced that the Jap presence on Molokai meant a Japanese attack would be against the southern portion of the island, at a place such as Barbers Point or Kaneohe Bay. Thus, that was where most of the construction of defenses was taking place.

  Jake had heard this, of course, and asked for their opinions. Almost to a man they felt that the attack would be at Haleiwa, despite what the higher-ups thought. One lanky captain from Arkansas put it succinctly: “This beach is the asshole of the world, and when this is over we’ll have been shat on.”

  Jake rose to the joke. “Shat?”

  “Past tense of shit, Jake. Look it up.”

  Collins had told Jake to try to contact him from Haleiwa. Incredibly, the telephone lines were functioning normally, and he got through easily.

  The colonel heard a brief commentary that would have meant nothing to someone listening in, but contained words that they’d agreed on to convey Jake’s impressions.

  Jake heard his superior sigh deeply across the phone. “Get back as soon as you can, buddy. We’ve got other problems.”

  “We do?”

  “Yeah, people are picking up distress signals in the clear, so this is no secret. Looks like the Pennsylvania’s in big trouble.”

  Problems had come early for the Pennsylvania. She’d managed to exit the harbor and, along with her four escorts, had safely rounded the northern portion of Oahu and headed eastward.

  But, by midmorning of the next day, a Japanese plane was seen in the distance. There was no way the plane could have missed them, and this was confirmed when the Jap moved in closer and circled the small force, always staying just out of range.

  Jamie and his companions could only hope that they’d put enough distance between themselves and the Japanese fleet covering Molokai to make a long stern chase toward California too difficult to attempt. Just about everyone felt that any threat would come from the air, and not from Japanese surface ships.

  Jamie was not totally comfortable with that theory, as the venerable Pennsylvania-she’d been launched in 1916-was able to do only sixteen knots and not her normal rated speed of twenty-one. This meant Japanese destroyers could do twice her speed and close rapidly to get into torpedo range. It also meant that Japanese planes could arrive at any time.

  Only a few moments later, a dozen Japanese dive-bombers and torpedo planes appeared in the sky to the west. The destroyers maneuvered to form a square with the lumbering Pennsylvania in the center. All five ships sent streams of antiaircraft fire into the approaching planes. Several were hit and fell in flames, but the others pressed on, with the blocking force of destroyers bearing the brunt of their wrath. One destroyer was hit by a bomb that blew away its forward turret and left it burning and almost dead in the water. A second was broken in half by a torpedo and sank in only a couple of minutes.

  One Val dive-bomber got through and dropped an eight-hundred-pound bomb on the battleship’s already damaged bow. The Pennsylvania shuddered and plowed on. The Val was not as fortunate. It was blown out of the sky as it attempted to fly away.

  Bombs and torpedoes expended, the remaining Japanese planes departed. It had cost them a mere five planes to sink one destroyer, badly cripple another, and they’d done additional damage to the Pennsylvania.

  The burning destroyer could not keep up with the three other ships and remained back to look for survivors from the sunken one. None of the other ships would be able to stop. To delay was to allow the gap between them and Japanese surface ships that must be on their way to close further.

  The rescue effort was doomed. Even though the fires seemed under control, the damaged destroyer would soon be sunk and was just delaying the inevitable.

  This was borne out when several Japanese destroyers were sighted in the distance. The two remaining American destroyers promptly steamed after them to do battle. It was a mistake. Almost before they were away, one of the destroyers exploded, lifting out of the water before she settled back and disappeared. She was quickly followed by the second, and word went down that they’d been sunk by torpedoes.

  “Can’t be,” Jamie said in dismay to the men of his ad hoc damage control party as they waited on the deck. The range was just too great, and the explosion was too big for torpedoes. “What the hell do the Japs have?”

  Moments later, the Pennsylvania shuddered, and a massive plume of dirty water lifted alongside her hull. The impact knocked Jamie to the deck.

  “Tell me that wasn’t a torpedo, Lieutenant,” said Seaman Fiorini, one of the men in the party.

  Before Jamie could answer, the big guns on the rear turret began a thunderous long-range duel with the rapidly closing Japanese destroyers. The Pennsylvania was alone now, and had to keep the enemy destroyers as far away as possible.

  The Pennsylvania’s gunners were both lucky and good. One fourteen-inch shell hit a Japanese destroyer, which exploded and disappeared. This caused the remaining three to pull farther out of range, although they continued to shadow the American ship.

  Two hours later a floatplane was sighted on the horizon, and everyone on the Pennsylvania knew that the Jap battle fleet had sighted her. There would be no escape to California. Jamie was further disconcerted to realize that the Japanese were approaching from the north and not from the west. He realized there had to have been two Japanese task forces, and they had blundered into range of the second one.

  Shortly after they were sighted, shells began to rain down on the Pennsylvania. At extreme range, none hit, but the splashes were greater than anything they’d seen before.

  “Sixteen-inchers,” Fiorini said. “Maybe larger. Probably eighteens.”

  Jamie laughed. “Ain’t nothing bigger than sixteen-inchers, and I don’t think the Japs have any of those. Besides, who made you an authority on big guns?”

  Others in the party laughed nervously. Fiorini had been in the paymaster’s office and helped run the battleship’s newspaper. Fiorini was not deterred. “Sixteens at least,” he said, and the others hooted. It was good to be distracted, if only for a moment.

  The Pennsylvania was struck by a pair of shells, and she shook like she was in an earthquake. Jamie was again kn
ocked to his knees and, when he got up, saw flames and dark smoke pouring from the gaping ruin that had been her bridge. He wondered if Captain Cooke was still commanding the battleship. Then he wondered if anyone was.

  The Pennsylvania was well within range of the Japanese guns that were still below the horizon, and she began to absorb additional punishment. At first Jamie and his crew tried to make emergency repairs, but it quickly became apparent that the Pennsylvania was doomed and that life above decks was a red-hot hell of raining shell fragments and flying debris.

  Bloodily dismembered bodies were piled about, and wounded, many horribly mangled, lay screaming where they fell. Some of the unhurt ran around in confusion and blind terror, interfering with those who were trying to do their duty and fight the ship. Walking was difficult because of the blood that ran down the decks, and several of Jamie’s group were hit by debris and body parts. One sailor was swept overboard by a metal fragment, while another was killed when a human arm was driven through his chest like a spear.

  Jamie took the survivors belowdecks, where they were shielded from the deadly rain. Anyone not in a turret or protected by the ship’s armor was going to die and very quickly. The battleship was fighting back, as the sound of her guns attested, but it seemed that the rate of fire was diminishing as the Japanese shells found their targets.

  In the midst of the horror, Fiorini grabbed his arm. “Come with me, Lieutenant. You gotta see this.”

  Jamie followed Fiorini down another couple of decks. The electricity was flickering, and Jamie was afraid he would be trapped in the dark bowels of a sinking ship, like the men in the Oklahoma, and the fear almost paralyzed him.

  Fiorini read his thoughts. “Just through here, sir. Remember the hit that didn’t explode?”

  “Yeah,” Jamie said nervously. It had happened a few moments earlier, when a shell slammed into the ship only a few dozen feet from them and they all thought they were dead. While they’d gasped in relief, Fiorini had disappeared for a moment.

  Finally, Fiorini paused. “Look at her, but don’t touch. She’s still hot and may go off.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Embedded in the decking was a monstrous shell. Its head was buried and out of sight, but the base was fully visible. Jamie was a gunnery officer, and it was larger than anything he had ever seen.

  “Hold this,” Fiorini said, handing him a tape measure. Jamie complied and measured the shell’s diameter. Eighteen inches! It was incredible; no, impossible. The Japs were firing eighteen-inch shells against them. He’d been told that nobody had eighteen-inchers, but he was staring at one.

  Fiorini pulled a small camera from his work bag and took several flash pictures while Jamie held the tape. Jamie was about to comment on the camera when he recalled Fiorini’s work on the ship’s paper.

  “These could be important,” Fiorini said, and Jamie agreed.

  “But first we got to get them out of here.”

  Somebody hollered that the ship was sinking, and they returned to the fury of the outside world as another Japanese salvo pounded them. By this time, the deck was only a few feet above the water, and the ship was tilted several degrees to starboard. Sailors were leaving the stricken vessel and were able to do so almost by stepping into the water.

  “Who gave the order to abandon ship?” Jamie asked.

  “No one,” came the reply. There was no one left to give the command. The venerable old Pennsylvania was defenseless, out of control, and sinking. The remaining turrets had been smashed, and the flame-charred guns were pointed in odd directions. Worse, it appeared that the ship was turning slowly in the direction of the Japanese, the tops of whose ships were now clearly visible as they emerged on the horizon. Jamie counted two battleships and then a third, and the third was a monster. He knew where the eighteen-inch shells had come from.

  Jamie, Fiorini, and scores of others stepped from the deck into the water. They swam toward floating debris while the doomed battleship moved slowly past them with stately dignity as shells continued to rain down, killing many of the men in the water. Jamie thanked the facts that he had his life jacket on and that he was an excellent swimmer.

  When he reached the debris, he gathered several dozen survivors and lashed debris together to form a raft. While they worked, the Pennsylvania continued to absorb punishment as she turned slowly away from the men floating in the water. Either someone was making a heroic charge at the enemy or the ship’s rudder was stuck. Jamie thought it was the rudder. He didn’t think anyone was in control of the battleship. Looking at the now burning hulk, he doubted that anyone was even alive, much less guiding the vessel.

  Jamie watched as the uneven struggle ended. Fiorini continued to take pictures, and Jamie wondered how he’d kept his camera dry.

  “Rubber pouch” was the answer. Fiorini then unloaded the film and put it in the pouch. The camera he tossed into the ocean. “No more film.”

  Moments later the Pennsylvania sank by the bow with the giant Japanese battleship virtually alongside her. When it was over, the Japanese ships began to pick up American survivors. Jamie’s party was a couple of miles away by this time, but they had no hopes of going undetected.

  “We’re gonna be prisoners?” Fiorini asked. “I think I’d rather stay in the water and take my chances with the sharks.”

  Jamie had heard how the Japs treated their prisoners and prayed he’d survive the ordeal.

  “They’re leaving,” someone yelled. It was true. The Jap ships were all turning away at high speed and leaving them in the water. When they were several miles away, the giant battleship must have spotted their group and opened fire with its smaller-caliber secondary batteries. That their target was tiny kept the survivors from being directly hit, but the splashes and concussion knocked them all off their improvised rafts and into the water.

  Jamie pulled himself back onto some debris. Fiorini bobbed up beside him and handed him the camera pouch. Jamie took it and was about to pull Fiorini out of the water when another shell landed nearby, covering him with spray and nearly knocking him back into the ocean. Fiorini’s face registered surprise and went slack. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he disappeared into the ocean. The concussion from the shell had created a surge of water pressure that had squashed the life out of him and somehow spared Jamie.

  The firing ceased. The Japanese were almost out of sight and over the horizon. Jamie counted about twenty survivors, many of whom were badly hurt. A second tally told him that he was the only officer, and that there was no food or water.

  He laughed bitterly. He was the commander of the crew of the Pennsylvania. At least the killing had stopped. Now all they had to do was survive.

  Admiral Chester Nimitz established his command at San Diego, which disappointed some of his officers, who’d hoped they’d get to stay at the larger and more cosmopolitan city of San Francisco. San Diego had a population of just under 150,000, while San Francisco was more than four times larger.

  Almost on the Mexican border, San Diego possessed a fine harbor, and a marine base as well as an existing naval base. Nimitz’s move was administrative and had nothing to do with the location of the fleet. Except for a handful of cruisers and destroyers, there were no major war-ships in the narrow harbor overlooked by the admiral’s temporary office.

  This day, Nimitz did not see the bay or anything else. His eyes were focused on the report in his hand, and, since he was alone, he made no effort to stop the tears that streamed down his face.

  The report confirmed what they had feared-the loss of the Pennsylvania and four destroyers with all hands. It was a catastrophe on a par with Pearl Harbor. The American public didn’t know about it yet, but desperate calls for help had been sent in the clear and had been picked up by shortwave radios. Amateur radios were supposed to have been shut down, but there were still a number of them listening. There would have to be a reckoning and an explanation, and it would have to come soon. Even with the battleship’s crew at less than
full strength, the combined crews were in excess of a thousand souls.

  Incredibly, because of the chaos at Pearl Harbor, no one was certain who was on the Pennsylvania and who wasn’t. That infuriated Nimitz. No one should have to die anonymously.

  There was a tap on the door, and Admiral Raymond Spruance entered. He had been commanding Halsey’s cruisers when Nimitz ordered him back to California. Spruance was a quiet man, but extremely intelligent and decisive. If Halsey was a bull, Spruance was the thinker. In only a short while, Nimitz had come to depend on Spruance’s abilities.

  Spruance crossed the office and discreetly looked out the window. It gave Nimitz an opportunity to wipe his eyes.

  “The Japs have pulled their ships back to the west of Hawaii,” Spruance said. “This’ll give us a chance to send out floatplanes and look for survivors. I doubt there’ll be any, but we’ll give it a try.”

  Nimitz nodded. Could it get any worse? he wondered.

  In the Philippines, MacArthur’s army was pinned on the Bataan Peninsula and the island of Corregidor. They would surrender in a matter of weeks, a couple of months at the most. MacArthur had been ordered to leave Corregidor so he would not be taken prisoner and paraded through Tokyo as a trophy.

  In the southern Pacific, a small American naval force had joined with other small forces from the Dutch and Royal navies. Under a Dutch admiral, they would try to blunt the Japanese offensive in that area. Nimitz thought their task was hopeless.

  The British army was retreating down the Malayan peninsula toward the city of Singapore, and it looked like a disaster there as well. Churchill had proclaimed the place a fortress that would be held at all costs, but everyone knew better.

  In both the Philippines and Malaya, the Japanese army had outfought and outmaneuvered the Americans and the British. This did not bode well for the fate of Hawaii.