1942

by Robert Conroy

  It had been what Hardegen and his comrades referred to as yet another “happy time,” as ship after ship was sunk off the American coast. U-boats boldly went up the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence, and into the port of New York. Hardegen himself had seen the city’s skyline and marveled at it. The Americans had been totally inept in their antisubmarine defenses. It was as if they never thought war would come to them. The Germans exulted as the idiots had even kept their city lights on, which enabled tankers to be silhouetted against them in the night.

  Hardegen had been ruthlessly efficient, although not unnecessarily cruel. He had not shelled lifeboats; slaughtering the innocent was not in him. Once, he had positioned the U-123 between the shore and a burning tanker that he was shelling with his deck gun. He did not want to accidentally send shells from the gun over the tanker and into the crowds of Americans gathered on the nearby beach to watch the show. He wondered what they’d thought when the U-123 had emerged before them, almost literally a stone’s throw away.

  The American defenses still weren’t particularly good, although they were improving. There was just too much shoreline for the Yanks to patrol, and they had too many bad habits to break. The Americans were likable, but so undisciplined, Hardegen thought.

  And discipline was what made Hardegen a good member of the Kriegsmarine, the German navy. He had spent the last few months as a training commander, but the navy had been asked to find out what the American fleet was up to. In short, where were the carriers? Despite lingering injuries, he would do his duty to the best of his now limited abilities.

  Hardegen had been at the U-boat base at Lorient, on the western coast of France, when the call came in. The U-123 with its new skipper had been the only sub in port, and her captain had just suffered an attack of appendicitis. With mixed emotions, Hardegen had essentially commandeered his old boat and taken her north.

  Her crew had been looking forward to more leave time in France, where they had been celebrating cheating death one more time in the riotous manner that was traditional with submariners. There’d been tons of food, copious amounts of liquor, and eager French whores. Still, the command from Admiral Doenitz would be obeyed.

  Hardegen’s orders had been to cruise north and try to find a suspected American task force off Iceland. He was to locate and observe and not commit any rash acts. Confirmation of the presence of the American fleet was deemed more important than another kill.

  This suited Hardegen for two reasons: his sub had left suddenly and without torpedoes, and he had no death wish.

  Thus, Hardegen squinted through the periscope and tried to make sense of what he saw anchored in the mist. American destroyers formed a protective outer screen, and it was difficult to see clearly because of the weather. He would make no attempt to penetrate further.

  He made a notation and turned the periscope over to his executive officer. “You make a tally, and we’ll compare,” he said.

  The other officer nodded and began his observations. Finally, he stepped back. “I make it five large carriers with a possible sixth in the distance. There are three battleships and a number of heavy cruisers. From their silhouettes, I believe they are all Americans.”

  Hardegen nodded. “I counted only five carriers and no sixth one in the distance. However, I defer to your younger eyes. Please signal that we have located the American fleet and give its probable disposition.”

  “Five carriers or six?”

  Hardegen thought for a moment. How marvelous that Berlin had even thought to look in Iceland for the Americans. And what were they doing there? Obviously there were big plans afoot, and his discovery would be a major part of upsetting them.

  “Let discretion be our guide. Tell them six.”

  At the secret codebreaking complex at Bletchley Park, England, the codebreakers exulted. Hardegen didn’t know it, but he was as safe as a baby in its crib. They had recorded both his orders sending him to Iceland and his brief report. He’d been allowed to exit Lorient without interference, and his return trip would likewise be uninterrupted; thus allowing him to amplify on the American armada he thought he’d seen off Iceland.

  Lieutenant Commander Fargo knew the totality of overwhelming, shuddering fear. The ocean outside the thin hull of the Monkfish throbbed as immense, angry, and fearsome life vibrated through the water and resonated within the submarine.

  Like his German counterpart half a world away, he was close to a massive fleet. In this case, the term close to meant feet and not miles.

  “Jesus Christ,” Fargo muttered. “How many of the fuckers are there?”

  He had spotted the approaching Japanese armada on a routine periscope sweep. Along with two of the largest battleships he’d ever imagined possible, he had noted a number of carriers before prudence told him to down periscope and lie on the floor of the harbor entrance and act like a piece of mud. Even though one of his men had tied debris to the periscope to make it less visible, he wasn’t going to chance it with the entire Japanese navy cruising past him.

  Instead, he and his men tried to identify the type of ship by the sound of its screws as it rumbled by. Assuming that the first two were the battleships and the carriers had followed, they were comfortable in estimating that at least a dozen major warships, heavy cruisers or larger, had entered the confines of Pearl Harbor, with still more coming. The enemy fleet was at least as large as the entire U.S. naval force that had been assigned to Pearl Harbor on December 7.

  But they’d had to enter through the channel single file, and they’d have to leave the same way. The channel was just too narrow to permit more than one of those leviathans to pass at a time. Fargo recalled that there had been real fear during the Pearl Harbor attack that one of the American ships would be sunk in the channel and plug it up. At one point, the entrance was only about a quarter mile wide, and the navigable portion much less than that.

  Fargo smiled as the noise level finally abated. Smaller ships, destroyers or light cruisers, made a different, lighter sound as they too entered the anchorage in a stately parade.

  “Where the hell they gonna park them all?” he heard one of his men whisper. The sailor didn’t know just how many ships there had been when the entire American fleet was in the harbor. He also had no idea how big the harbor was. It would require planning, but Pearl could handle a very large number of ships.

  But there was still only one narrow entrance.

  If, as Admiral Lockwood had explained, the Jap fleet might come out in a helluva rush, then they might not be looking for one small submarine right at the entrance to the harbor.

  Maybe, Fargo thought and smiled, he would get a chance to do some real damage and still get away.

  The sound of the ships finally ceased. He waited until he knew the wreck was in shadows and carefully raised the periscope. With it only a few inches above the water, he looked around. The entrance to the harbor was empty. The Japs had disappeared inside. He swung the scope and looked out onto the ocean. A picket line of destroyers was in view but several miles away. It was highly unlikely they were looking in his direction. They would be watching for an enemy that would come from the sea if it came at all. He was as safe again as he had been before the Japs had arrived. The Monkfish was inside the Japanese defense perimeter.

  Hell, Fargo thought. He had indeed sailed right up their asses.

  Akira Kaga was greeted as a long-lost brother by the pilots stationed at Wheeler Field. He wore his real Japanese uniform for the occasion, and the young men were suitably impressed by the decorations and the wound he had suffered for Nippon.

  He had invited himself for a tour and an opportunity to talk to the men stationed in what had become an isolated outpost that still bore the scars of the battles earlier in the year.

  Only a handful of buildings at the airfield had been repaired sufficiently to use, and a surprisingly small number of planes was lined up along one runway.

  Schofield Barracks was in even worse shape, which was one reason why there were
no Japanese soldiers in the area. There were only the pilots, their mechanics, and a handful of Japanese marines as guards. The prisoner of war pens were vacant and stood as haunting reminders of the American defeat. Akira wondered how many of those thousands who’d been imprisoned there were still alive. Judging by the emaciated condition of those he’d seen before they’d been shipped off, few would have survived the long voyage to Japan. It was something else that Japan would have to answer for.

  As he looked around, it occurred to Akira that the place was even more poorly defended than it had been on December 7.

  A Captain Masaka had greeted him warmly and introduced him to the other men, who appeared glad to have him there as an interruption to a boring existence.

  After his talk to the troops, which was different from the one he gave to the civilians, Akira asked for a further tour of the facility, and Masaka was happy to oblige. Akira limped badly, but he was able to keep up with the captain. His determination in using the artificial leg was beginning to show dividends.

  “Tell me,” Akira asked, “why are you stationed here and not at Hickam, Ford Island, or the other strips closer to Honolulu and Pearl?”

  Masaka grinned. “I wish we were. But Admiral Iwabachi fears sabotage, so he had us put as far away from Hawaiian people as possible. That and the fact that the other fields are still unusable made this the logical choice.”

  Masaka’s statement confirmed what Akira had heard and observed. As everywhere else, the damage done in the fighting here had not been repaired. Of course, the Japanese in Oahu didn’t need a lot of airfields with only a couple dozen planes at their disposal. But it did explain Novacek’s interest in Wheeler’s vulnerability.

  “Are the planes always parked this close together?” Akira asked. The Zeros and scout planes were almost wingtip to wingtip.

  Masaka shrugged. “Admiral’s orders, and admirals always know best, don’t they? We have only a squad of guards, and they can’t watch the planes if they’re scattered all over the place. I know it’s like how the Americans had theirs when we attacked them, but there are no American ships, and, besides, we’re in the middle of the island, where we’d get plenty of warning.”

  “Of course, when Yamamoto’s fleet comes, any concerns will all become immaterial, won’t they?”

  “Precisely.” Masaka beamed. “And perhaps I can get a billet in Honolulu, where I can have a little fun with the local women. We get some prostitutes bussed here every weekend for those who can’t get off duty, but they are usually quite ugly. It is a miserable existence here in the middle of paradise.”

  Akira laughed sympathetically with the young man. He wondered how many combat missions Masaka had flown. Probably only a few, maybe none.

  Akira walked around the area a little longer, taking note of the locations of the sandbagged guard bunkers. Mentally, he answered the question Jake hadn’t asked: He could take Wheeler and destroy the planes. But then what? A simple raid would result in some killings and destruction, but if it were an isolated instance, the attackers would be hunted down and killed. Admiral Iwabachi would be particularly furious when he learned that Japanese had done this, and his vengeance would be terrible.

  No, this had to be part of something much bigger than simply embarrassing the Japanese, and he was pleased to be participating in it.

  Charley Finch smiled contentedly as he sorted supplies. After what had seemed an eternity of furtive looking, he now had knowledge that was useful. A few casual comments and a couple of glances at documents he wasn’t supposed to see had told him that the Americans were up to something. Security in the camp was lax, and everyone seemed to think that everyone else was totally trustworthy. This had given him a golden opportunity, and he had made the most of it.

  Incredibly, Novacek had gotten his hands on an airplane.

  But what the hell was he going to do with it? Finch now had a solid idea where it was located, but he had no idea what kind of plane it was, or what it was going to be used for.

  He could rule out a bomber, although stripped-down B-17s had flown from California to Hawaii last December. A bomber needed bombs and more fuel, and Charley was confident that Novacek had neither in any serious quantity.

  So that left somebody’s personal, civilian plane, a leftover from before the war. Perhaps there was even more than one, but how did that change matters? Those were dinky-ass things with no range and minimal bomb-carrying capability.

  Still, they could carry small bombs and could be fitted with machine guns.

  That must be it, Charley decided. Fucking Novacek must be planning an attack on a Japanese outpost, and Hilo was the logical answer. All the Jap garrison at Hilo had was a couple of small seaplanes that they used to pretend they were scouting. Now all he had to do was get the information to Lieutenant Goto and collect his reward. He wouldn’t be able to guarantee the total destruction of Novacek’s group, but he could sure cut their balls off.

  “Oh, there you are.”

  Charley looked up quickly. It was Alexa Sanderson, and she was smiling at him. She sure was looking better since she and Novacek had started screwing each other’s brains out. The relationship was an open secret in the community, with no one disapproving. Charley didn’t care who she fucked.

  “Jake wanted me to give you a message.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “He wants you to go to a couple of the farms by Hilo that’ve been supplying us with food. Tell them we’ll need additional supplies and we’ll need them fast.”

  “Uh, how fast, ma’am? They can’t grow what they don’t have.”

  Alexa laughed easily. “Of course not. Tell them to gather what they can and have it ready at the prearranged sites within two weeks. For some reason, Jake thinks we may have to move from here fairly quickly, and he’ll want supplies positioned where we can get at them.”

  Two weeks? Now he had a time frame for whatever they were up to. “I’ll leave tonight. Who will I take with me?”

  “Do you need anyone?”

  He shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Good,” she said, her smile even wider. “Jake thinks we’ll be short of men, so if you can go alone, that’d be swell.”

  When she left, Charley hummed happily. He had just been handed a gift from above. He could leave and give the information to Goto and, if necessary, come back to this stinking little camp. The fact that they’d have to move quickly meant that it wasn’t going to be only an air raid. He could tell the obnoxious lieutenant that there was going to be an infantry attack on Hilo in conjunction with the air attack.

  As Colonel Omori had predicted, Admiral Yamamoto had not been pleased with their efforts. He and Admiral Iwabachi had been summoned to the admiral’s flagship, the Yamato, and were seated with Yamamoto in a conference room. Outside, the might of Imperial Japan lay at anchor in a stunning array of battleships, carriers, cruisers, and destroyers. The population of Honolulu had stood by the tens of thousands and gaped at the awesome might of Japan. Now maybe some of the nervous fools, those who were upset by the death of that girl, and all the others would realize just who was going to win this war.

  Yamamoto glared at both men. “I had expected to see a fully functioning port and naval facility,” he said through tight lips, “not this collection of ruins and rusting hulks.”

  Iwabachi also contained his anger. “With profoundest respects, Admiral, then you should have seen to it that I received the resources to accomplish the task. Not even the best of carpenters can drive nails without a hammer. Tokyo gave me seven thousand men to control all these islands and to contain many thousands of prisoners. They gave me few mechanics and skilled workers, no equipment, and no food.”

  “What about the American men and equipment?”

  Iwabachi laughed harshly. “Despite orders to the contrary, much of the port facilities and material that had not been damaged in the fighting were destroyed by the Americans. We executed some of those responsible, of course, but it was too late. T
he damage had been done.

  “We used the prisoners and civilian workers, but they were indifferent workers at best, and some even committed further acts of sabotage. Then, as a result of the food shortages, they weakened, which slowed progress even further. After a while they became useless, which is why I had the prisoners shipped to Japan. I was told that my priority was the repair of the fuel storage facilities, and that task has been fulfilled. Even now, fuel is being added to them from your tankers. Any other work done by us was to provide suitable living quarters and to repair the roads. And, of course, I had to resolve the food situation.”

  Yamamoto tapped the fingers of his mangled hand on the table between them. What the arrogant junior admiral had said was correct. Tokyo had not been fully confident that Hawaii could be held, so it had not provided the wherewithal to do a proper job. The government emissaries who expected to see the annexation of a radiant jewel in the middle of the Pacific would be disappointed, but they would have to deal with that fact.

  But his presence now meant that this situation would change. Only moments before, he had received confirmation that the American carriers were in the Atlantic, off Iceland, and preparing for an undetermined action against Germany. Exactly what they were up to didn’t concern him. He didn’t care if the Americans tried to cruise up the Rhine. His only concern was that they were far away from Hawaii.

  The sole remaining Allied force of significance in the Pacific was a British squadron that had taken up a position in Australian waters in anticipation of a move in that direction by Japan. Yamamoto had sent a pair of old battleships, a small carrier, and a dozen heavy and light cruisers toward Australia to threaten it and further mask his move to Hawaii. Now it seemed that the effort had not been necessary. The Americans were gone. The Pacific was Japan’s. The world would soon know that the fleet was in Hawaiian waters, and Tokyo would shortly announce that the annexation would occur. Representatives from Nazi Germany, along with emissaries from several puppet and neutral nations, had accompanied the fleet.