1942

by Robert Conroy

  Watanabe grimaced. “Two, and neither of them fighters.”

  “Tomorrow night I’ll give you a dozen,” Fuchida promised.

  Watanabe laughed. “It is a gift I’ll accept gladly. Then you can get back to the hospital, so your leg can heal.”

  Fuchida wished Watanabe hadn’t reminded him about his wound. With all his activities, he had almost forgotten it. He had to stay seated most of the time with his leg propped up, but he could still command.

  A distant growl caught their attention. It was hard to identify over the sounds of voices and clattering machinery emanating from the Hiryu.

  “Planes,” Fuchida said, puzzled.

  “Can’t be,” said Watanabe. Then he looked ill. “No, can’t be.”

  Out of the darkness they dropped. The dive-bombers from the American carriers had easily eluded the Japanese search planes and, like moths attracted to light, had homed in on the lights illuminating the Japanese ships.

  An American plane completed its dive and roared over Fuchida’s head. Seconds later, the bomb exploded on the Hiryu’s flight deck. The commander watched in dismay and horror as the crane flew into the air and tumbled into the barge beside the ship.

  More bombs struck the Hiryu, and, like her sister the Akagi, she was soon engulfed in flames.

  Fuchida steeled himself to count the planes as they swirled by and back into the dark. He stopped at thirty. This was no raid by older-model land-based planes left over from the initial battles for Hawaii. This was a carrier attack, and the attackers were newer-model Grummans.

  More bombs ripped the Hiryu, and other ships began to take hits. Japanese antiaircraft guns filled the sky with glowing tracers, but they seemed to do little harm. As before, they couldn’t shoot what they couldn’t see until the last minute.

  As the attack thundered on, the Japanese gunnery did get better, and American planes started to fall in flames from the lightening sky. Several Americans attacked the Yamato, which, despite being protected by nearly 150 antiaircraft guns, had several bombs explode against her superstructure.

  And then it was over. Fuchida stood on his crutches and wept. The Hiryu was a burning ruin, and so were his hopes of protecting the fleet with her planes. The Kaga and Soryu were also burning, although not as badly as the Hiryu.

  Fuchida was about to say something to Watanabe when a tremendous explosion ripped through the Hiryu, sending a shock wave over the area and ripping all around her with metal debris.

  Fuchida found himself lying on the ground several feet from where he had been sitting. Much of his uniform had been blown off, and now his other leg hurt like the devil. He saw a piece of bone sticking through the skin of his thigh.

  Watanabe lay beside him, but Watanabe was dead. A piece of debris had decapitated him, and his head was nowhere to be seen.

  Fuchida attempted to focus his dimming vision on the remains of the Hiryu. She had broken in half, and both ends were sinking toward the middle.

  He tried to rise and felt hands pushing him back. “Be still, sir. Let us take care of you.”

  The commander was helpless. Both his legs were broken, and he was having trouble both seeing and hearing. He gave in to the darkness that was engulfing him. “Poor Japan,” he murmured. “What have we done?”

  Across the harbor and through the flames and clouds of smoke, Admiral Yamamoto watched the destruction of his dreams and the future of his nation. For a brief moment, he contemplated going off to some solitary place where he could commit suicide in accordance with the code of bushido. But the thought passed as he realized that intentional death was the coward’s way out. No, he had an obligation to his men and his nation to retrieve as much as he could from the debacle swirling about him.

  Thus focused, he concentrated on the options yet available to him. First, it was appallingly obvious that Fuchida’s task of lifting planes from carriers and onto the land was doomed. The Hiryu was sinking, and at least two other carriers were damaged. While they might still be able to off-load a handful of planes, it would take too much time, which meant that this was no longer the solution. The fleet had to move out of the harbor through the channel, and that meant concentrating on towing out the hulk of the Akagi.

  And he no longer had days in which to solve the problem. Instead, he had hours.

  Judging from the sheer number of American planes in the most recent attack, there were at least two carriers, possibly more, in the vicinity of Oahu. Identification of the carriers they were from might come from interrogating shot-down pilots if any had survived, but it was almost irrelevant. Such knowledge would not come from Japanese floatplanes and flying boats. They were patrolling, but they were vulnerable and would be shot down by the next wave of attackers.

  Yamamoto still had two carriers and the rest of the surface fleet intact. Several of those ships had sustained hits, but nothing severe. In particular, the Yamato had been struck by a pair of bombs and seemed to have brushed off the damage. If the remaining portion of the fleet could sortie out and do battle with the Americans, at least some of the shame could be washed away.

  The attempt to remove the Akagi must be accelerated, despite the risks. The Americans would be returning to their floating bases to refuel and rearm. They would be back in the harbor in a matter of hours. Japanese gunners would put up a stout defense, but it was a given that bombers would get through to the ships if there were no planes to impede them. Thus, it was also true that each ship damaged or sunk reduced the number of Japanese guns, which made it easier for the attackers to get through the next time. It was, he mused, a spiral into hell. It had to be broken before the rest of the Japanese fleet was pounded to pieces.

  But how had the American carriers appeared off Oahu at this precise time? Was German intelligence so slipshod as to mistake the presence of the Americans off Iceland? Or had the Germans betrayed their Asian allies to their white counterparts? Yamamoto decided he would write down his thoughts and have the message sent to Tokyo.

  And how had the Americans known so far in advance as to be able to place their ships and planes in such an advantageous position? There were only three options: Treason, espionage, and the breaking of the Japanese codes. Of the three, he considered espionage the most likely. There were far too many people in Hawaii who had known in advance of his arrival. The information could have been stolen from them and sent to the United States via those damned guerrillas on Hawaii. That a Japanese citizen could have betrayed his country in favor of the Americans was unthinkable. So too was the idea that the Japanese codes had been broken.

  At least the Americans on the Big Island would be eliminated. Colonel Omori had given his assurances in that regard.

  CHAPTER 25

  Lieutenant Goto was exhausted. It had been a long time since he’d been out in the field, and he was definitely out of shape. But at last they were driving the Americans before them like the animals they were.

  Goto heard a noise and turned around. Captain Kashii had hacked the head off an American corpse. Kashii took the head and put it on the hood of his truck.

  “Interesting hood ornament, isn’t it?” the captain asked with a cackle. “Not as exquisite as a Rolls-Royce’s, but it satisfies me.”

  “Indeed,” said Goto. Kashii’s action confirmed Goto’s opinion that the disaster at Pearl Harbor had deranged the captain. Instead of being aggressive, Kashii’s actions had been wild and irrational. For instance, why did he insist on the troops returning to the trucks even for small advances? They had been ambushed while in such vulnerable columns, although the attacks seemed to have stopped since the last couple of marines had been killed.

  The American marine Kashii had beheaded had been captured barely alive but had died while Goto was trying to extract information from him. From his papers, they learned that he’d been an officer. A shame he hadn’t told them anything.

  They’d been able to get information from the local population fairly easily. The short trail from Hilo was littered with scores o
f dead and dying Hawaiians, whose agonies had motivated others to talk freely. Several villages, swollen with people who’d fled Hilo, were nearby, and the occupants had been easy to terrorize. As a result, they were closing in on the handful of Americans who remained on the loose. There weren’t more than a dozen left, and there were still more than three hundred Japanese chasing them. The end was inevitable. He only hoped that this Novacek would be captured alive, along with the woman who had so angered Colonel Omori.

  Of course, some of the guerrillas would have scattered, but they would be found in short order. When it was over, Goto and Kashii could return to Hilo, although Goto wondered just what they’d be returning to. If the bad news coming from Pearl was even remotely correct, Japan was in danger of losing the Hawaiian Islands.

  Goto thought this was almost beyond credibility. Japan did not go to war to be defeated. What had happened? It had to be betrayal, and it had to have come from the Americans they were chasing. If Japan was forced to quit Hawaii for a short while, it would not be the fault of the military.

  Gunfire in the distance grabbed Goto’s attention. “We’ve caught them,” Kashii shrieked and waved his bloody sword in a circle around his head. “Back to the trucks, we’ll circle behind them.”

  Goto wondered at the logic of the move. The Americans were only a mile or two away. They should be pressed by men on the ground, not by soldiers in trucks driving over harsh terrain that caused the column to stretch out at times and pile up at others. On the land they were traversing, men in trucks moved more slowly than men on foot. Using trucks for the pursuit would give the small American force a chance to squeeze away and delay the inevitable.

  But then Goto saw the irrational glint in Kashii’s eyes. No, the lieutenant decided, he would not attempt to discuss tactical or logistical matters with a lunatic waving a sword.

  In the two days since the first American attacks, wave upon wave of fighters and dive-bombers had hurled themselves at the bottled-up Japanese fleet. American bombs and bullets found a wealth of targets trapped in the harbor and unable to maneuver. And they steadily destroyed both ships and the antiaircraft defenses that remained. Thus, with each succeeding attack, the Japanese navy had less with which to defend itself.

  In a frenzy, Admiral Yamamoto focused everything on moving the hulk of the Akagi. In only a short while, there would be nothing left of his fleet. He had waited too long, and now all six of his carriers were lying in the mud of Pearl Harbor. Fortunately, he thought with some irony, two had sunk upright in shallow water, which deceived the Americans into thinking they were still afloat. As a result, he still had two of his four battleships, the Yamato and the Kongo, while the Americans concentrated on re-sinking the dead carriers.

  The old battleship Haruna had been sunk, and the Yamato’s sister ship, the Musashi, had suffered a truly ignominious fate. In an effort to pull the Akagi out of the channel, she had been used as a tug, and the exertions, combined with an inexperienced crew, had resulted in a blown engine plant. If and when the remainder of the Japanese fleet managed to sortie, the Musashi would be scuttled. In the meantime, she would function as a floating battery.

  Along with the two battleships, there remained four heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and a dozen destroyers. All of the ships were damaged but seaworthy and would put up a fight. All he had to do was get them out of Pearl Harbor before they too were destroyed.

  The fighting had not been totally one-sided. There were far fewer American planes in the air; Japanese gunners had exacted a heavy price before being destroyed.

  The eighteen-inch guns of the Yamato and the immobile Musashi had fired over land and into the approaching American fleet. They had all gained a measure of satisfaction when the Musashi sank a Brooklyn-class light cruiser that had ventured too close. However, it did not stop the American battleships and heavy cruisers from steaming close in at night and lofting shells into the harbor as their damned planes dropped flares and called the fall of shot.

  The drawn-out battle reminded Yamamoto of a prizefight where both boxers were exhausted but only one had the strength to hurl punches and the other had no means of resistance. Both had been bloodied, but only one would soon be standing.

  He had been informed that there would be no attempt at relief. The decoy fleet off Australia was both too small and too far away. The Japanese in Pearl Harbor had to escape or die.

  There was a knock on his office door. He was still ashore as he saw no point in being aboard his flagship, which was under frequent attack.

  “Come in.”

  Commander Shigura Fujii, his chief of intelligence, entered hesitantly. It should have been his friend Watanabe, Yamamoto thought, but Watanabe’s ashes were in a box awaiting shipment to Japan. That is, he thought wryly, if we are able to get out of our prison. Even if they did, the ashes of the dead trailed behind the living as a priority for escape.

  “What is it?” the admiral asked.

  “Some good news,” Fujii said. “At last the channel’s clear.”

  Yamamoto took a deep breath. Why hadn’t this happened earlier? The towing had managed to move the Akagi a little ways, and the final clearing effort had used explosives. A few hours before, engineers had blown her to pieces. They had waited only for confirmation that some giant piece of the carrier hadn’t shifted and blocked a different part of the channel. Several engineers had died trying to jam the carrier with explosives, because hot spots still existed and there had been several small, premature detonations.

  “We will sortie immediately,” Yamamoto said grimly. “What are the Americans doing?”

  “Waiting for us,” Fujii answered. “Their planes have been watching, and their ships are poised to pounce on us as we emerge from the channel. The American carriers are out of sight, but we can see four battleships and at least as many heavy cruisers. There are numerous light cruisers and destroyers as well. They will be waiting to cross our T”

  Of course, Yamamoto thought. Crossing the T was the classic naval maneuver that every naval commander attempted to perform. In it, all of one fleet’s guns could be brought to bear on the head of an enemy column, which could use only a portion of its own guns. The fleet that crossed the other’s T was almost always victorious.

  The Americans would cross his T, and there was nothing he could do about it. His ships had to exit the channel in a single line, into the teeth of the American guns and torpedoes. Fujii had neglected to mention the likelihood of American submarines.

  “The destroyers will lead,” Yamamoto said, repeating what had already been decided. “They will attack the Americans with torpedoes and scatter them. Then the battle line will emerge, with the Yamato leading and the others following. As the Yamato’s guns destroy the American ships, the cruisers will search out and destroy the American carriers. Give Admiral Abe my congratulations on the great victory that he will win. I will wait here for his return.”

  Fujii gasped. It was a death sentence for Abe and his ships. “Yes, Admiral.”

  Yamamoto waited until he was alone again before burying his head in his hands. One or two ships might fight their way through, but the whole effort was what the British called a forlorn hope, an effort virtually destined for failure.

  Yamamoto would not be waiting for their return. A submarine was positioned just off Honolulu, and, during the distraction of the battle, he and a handful of others would be rowed out and taken aboard for their escape to Japan. A transport ship also waited off Honolulu for the opportunity to escape with the irreplaceable remaining carrier pilots. The highly skilled pilots had never fought, and, with the exception of those lost on the Akagi and a few others, all were alive. With them, the handful of new carriers Japan was building could be staffed. Without them, the carrier planes would be flown by untrained personnel who would be slaughtered by the more experienced and increasingly skilled Americans. The sortie of the Yamato and the others was nothing more than a giant distraction. The pilots had to be saved.

  Jake No
vacek stifled a scream as he dragged Hawkins into the brush while his handful of other survivors covered them. It had been only a small Japanese probe, but it had been enough. Hawkins had taken a bullet in the leg that had smashed the bone, and Jake had been hit in the chest by a bullet that first ricocheted off a rock. If it had hit him squarely, he would have been dead. As it was, he had several broken ribs. Hawkins’s leg was strapped to a rough splint made out of a tree branch.

  With agonizing slowness, they reached the crest of the ridge and looked down into the narrow valley. “Shit,” Jake muttered.

  “That good, huh?” Hawkins managed through clenched teeth.

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “Out-fucking-standing.”

  A thousand yards away, a long column of Japanese trucks wound slowly down a rough path. They were bunched up, but, slow as they were, they were moving behind Jake’s force. In a few minutes, they would be in position. Hundreds of Japanese soldiers would then disgorge from the trucks and climb the hill.

  Hawkins had clawed himself upright by grasping a tree. “Damn, there are a lot of them. I guess it’s over, ain’t it, Colonel Jake?”

  “Sure looks like it, Captain Hawk,” Jake said. They could fall back the way they’d come, but doing so would put them back where that Japanese patrol waited for them to come running. Or, in his and Hawkins’s case, come crawling.

  “I guess we should stay here, then. No point in chasing around anymore, is there?” Hawkins said.

  None of the Americans had any intention of being taken prisoner. After all they’d done, the Japanese would make their suffering long and horrible. They’d all decided to do what was done in the bad cowboy and Indian movies-save a last bullet for themselves.

  “Colonel, if I can’t manage it, will you shoot me?” Hawkins asked.

  “Only if you’ll do the same for me.”

  “Deal. Christ, I wonder if this is what Custer felt like?”