Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance

by War

  "Sure, they've come on her first. Better look sharp, all the same.

  "Bet your ass," said the sailor whose steel helmet was stencilled Gun Captain. "Sir," he added, showing white teeth, and they all laughed.

  In his exaltation Warren thought that these were wonderful-looking American kids, that the weather was amazingly fine, that there was nothing to beat combat in the world, and that this victorious return in a damaged plane, with the fuel needle jammed at zero, was like starting life over with a million dollars. The launching of fighters commenced.

  Fingers to their ears, Warren and the gun crew peered toward the Yorktown, while planes howled off the deck one by one. They were still taking off when a smoke column grew out of the distant gray shape.

  "Shit, they got her," said the gun captain sadly.

  "Maybe their screen's just making smoke," said another sailor.

  "That ain't no smoke screen, you idiot," said the gun captain.

  "That's a goddamn bomb hit, and-Jesus Christ!"

  He frenziedly trained the weapon at a cluster of specks in the sunny sky. "Here comes a gang of the bastards. Straight at US."

  "All gun crews, attention." The loudspeaker took on an urgent tone. "Planes approaching on the port quarter are not, repeat not, BOGIES, they are FRIENDLIES. Hold yourfire.

  They are returning Yorktown aircraft, low on fuel and requesting emergency landing. The Yorktown has been hit.

  Repeat HOLD YOUR FIRE. Stand by to take planes on board.

  Plane handlers scampered out on deck with red, yellov and green jerseys showing under their life jackets. Warren jumped from the gun tub, sprinted across the windy deck, and went below. A glance into the torpedo squadron room sobered him. The teletype was clicking away, and on the unwatched screen words crawled, YORKTOWN REPORTS THREE BOMB HITS HEAVY DAMAGE BELOW DECKS Acey-deucey sets, packs'of cards, girlie and sports magazines lay about the vacant leather reclining chairs.

  Ashtrays heaped with cigar and cigarette butts gave off a heavy stale smell.

  Good God, Lindsey's squadron must have had a bad time!

  Still, maybe they were elsewhere, in the wardroom or in sick bay, the ones who had got back....

  His own squadron room, though far from full, was lively and noisy.

  Of the ten fliers here, two were reserves who had not gone out.

  Eight of the eighteen returned so far, then.

  Only eight! They were talking, laughing, holding coffee or a sandwich in one hand and gesturing airplane maneuvers with the other.

  Overhead the Yorktown's planes were thumping down with snarling engines, while the teletype clicked out a new damage report. She was on fire, dead in the water; dammage control parties were beginning to master the blaze, but the Enterprise would have to land her search planes, too.

  Warren gave the debriefing officer his combat account, chalking out his dive maneuver on the blackboard, while the jubilant pilot talk went on and on-who had gotten a hit, who had missed, who had been attacked by Zeroes, who had been seen on fire or going in the water, who might have ditched on the return leg. About Warren's hit there was no argument: solid, spectacular, confirmed. The rest of the attack was shrouded in dissent, even to the number of carriers observed -five, two, three, four, no consensus whatever; not about that, not about the hits, not even about the nearmisses, and some disagreements verged on the acrimonious.

  A telephone call from his squadron commander summoned Warren to Air Operations, and he hurried to the dark low crowded plotting room, clamorous with loudspeaker blare.

  Amid ozone-reeking, green-flashing radar scopes, and big Plexiglas compass roses still marked with orange greasepencil tracks of the Jap attack, Gallaher was huddling with a refugee lieutenant from the Yorktown. McClusky had returned wounded, Gallaher said, so he would lead the group to attack the fourth carrier. Search planes were out to pinpoint its position now. His exec was missing, and Warren was next in line. Warren would have to scratch together a bomber squadron at once, with the surviving pilots of Bombing Six, Scouting Six, and the Yorktown aviators. Instant promotion to squadron command seemed quite normal to Warren on this radiant day. Gallaher went off at a call from Miles Browning. Warren sketched an attack plan with the Yorktown squadron leader, a hard-faced Southerner itching to strike back at the Jap flattop that had disabled his ship.

  Back in Scouting Six room, Warren called together the Enterprise's Dauntless fliers and the Yorktown's refugees.

  Arms akimbo before the blackboard, he explained the new orders, and briskly warned against any further contention between Bombing Six and, Scouting Six over hits in the morning strike. "Here's another shot for all hands," he said.

  "It's our asses if we don't operate together like old buddies, so save your pugnacity for the Japs."

  The meeting went smooth as glass. From the first, the Bombing Six fliers and the Yorktown strangers accepted Warren's leadership. The aviators and their pro term skipper quickly decided on new wing mates and section positions. He could sense them coalescing, as they talked, into a working make-do squadron. Warren forgot his fatigue. He almost forgot the missing pilots. The one thing he loved even above flying was leadership of any sort. He had not had a command since his Academy battalion.

  Even the news that the Yorktown, after quelling the fires and resuming fleet speed, had been torpedoed in a second attack, was again ablaze and listing, and might be abandoned, could be taken in stride.

  The main thing was that the fourth carrier had been located, and the attack was on. Warren's last briefing to his hastily formed squadron went by like a dream, and he found himself in the cockpit of an SBD-2, with Cornett as usual in the rear seat. A dizzy, numbed but far from unpleasant sense filled Warren. He was riding a rocket of hours, staying alert on nervous energy, unafraid, and happy. Great events were swirling over his head, but he had to keep his part clear and simple: fly this plane, lead this squadron, find that carrier, and get a bomb hit.

  On his launch the sense of heading out into the unknown was almost gone; Warren wryly thought that it was a little bit like the second time with a woman. There were no torpedo planes or fighters to wait for. The fighters had to stay behind to guard the Enterprise and the smoking Yorktown; and the torpedo aircraft were finished. A Hornet dive-bomber squadron was supposed to join the strike; but seeing no launch activity on the Hornet, Gallaher decided to get going, and he led his group westward. It was a straight quiet flight into the sun over a cloudless blue sea. After an hour the Jap flattop showed on the horizon, straight ahead on the predicted bearing, in a heavy protective ring of ships. Southward in the distance, in a blaze of afternoon sunshine, the three ruined smoldering hulks of the other carriers still floated in a line, listing crazily this way and that: slaughtered bulls, dumped outside the bullring- Gallaher hooked all the way around the fourth flattop, so as to attack out of the sinking sun. With plenty of fuel, with only one carrier to attack, he could indulge in drilled doctrine, Warren thought, instead of making the pell-mell dives of the morning strike.

  The sea winked with antiaircraft guns like a lawn full of fireflies. Black bursts idled the air. Zeroes swarmed up to meet them. Different business this time! The carrier, boiling out a thick white curving wake, heeled far over in a confusing flank speed Turn.

  Now the newness of the squadron showed in ragged dives. Warren saw bomb after bomb splash. He went into his own dive, trying to shut out the distractions-the salvos of COmett's gun, the green-brown Zeroes zooming and swooping like chicken hawks and spitting red tracers, the wild rattle of shrapnel on his wings, and the damned curving course of the carrier. He managed to hold the ship in his scope as he plunged thousands of feet, popping his ears and sweating; but the unfamiliar plane wobbled and the carrier kept sliding away. He made his decision to drop. Instantly he regretted it. As his hand obeyed his will and released the bomb he knew it would miss. When with a sinking stomach and aching loins he pulled up and looked back, a column of white water was kicking up ahead of the ship. But
even as the water splashed on the tilting bow a giant fire sprang out of the afterdeck like a terrible red and yellow flower, and a second smoky explosion forward sent the whole elevator flyingout of the deck and slamming back against the island, streaming flames and debris. So someone else had done it, thank Christ.

  Scratch another carrier.

  Antiaircraft shrapnel was churning up the foamy blue waves as Warren dodged along the surface through the dark puffs, gunned straight between two big yellow-blinking ships - a battleship and a cruiser, he thought - an - d blasted out at full throttle to the open sea.

  Amazingly, despite the AA storm and the alerted Zeroes, when the straggling planes joined up and formed on Gallaher, Warren counted only three missing. Behind them, the thick smoke rolling up above the carrier was reddened within by leaping fire, and without by the low sun. The triumphant radio talk indicated four sure bomb hits, perhaps five. This was more like battle as he had pictured it: danger, losses, but victory with discipline unbroken. It was not too unlike an island raid. The morning attack by comparison had been a bloody botched mess.

  But of course this fourth carrier had been such a pigeon only because the first strike had already incinerated most of the Jap air force.

  Only the sight of the tardy Hornet dive-bombers high overhead, heading the other way half an hour late in the red sunset light, recalled the morning foul-up.

  Warren found the Northampton in the great spread of screening ships, -and made his wing-wagging pass. When his wheels touched down in the last glow of sunset, exhaustion flooded him. Barely keeping his eyes open through a perfunctory debriefing, he stumbled off to his cabin. He thought he would drop off to sleep when he fell in his bunk.

  Instead he lay awake, though aching with fatigue, staring at the squadron exec's neat bunk. They had been roommates, but hardly close friends. There on the blanket was a half-empty pack of Camels. There on the bulkhead smiled the picture of his girl, Lois, a Navy junior.

  The short dark-haired sallow Ken Turner from Front Royal, Virginia, was gone. He would never manage that Hereford farm of his father's; or could he be alive somewhere out there on a raft? When Warren with an effort closed his eyes, yellow decks began coming up at him, and airplanes were exploding in rainbow spurts of flame.

  "To hell with this," he said aloud and went to Gallaher's stateroom, where other wakeful pilots were discussing what was in store tomorrow; mainly, how to split up the search and the attack assignments. Obviously, there would be a highspeed pursuit all night; search at dawn, launch for attack at sunrise. The Japs must be given no respite.

  Without air cover, their battleships and cruisers were as vulnerable as the Prince of Wales and the Repulse had been. Here was the big chance of the war to smash the Nip fleet, and there would be plenty of hunting tomorrow for dive-bombers. So the talk went, mixed with exultation about the gutting of the four carriers.

  They had not been seen to sink, so finishing them off might also be in the next day's work, But Gallaher thought that destroyer torpedoes would do that job.

  Fliers came and went in the room, Yorktown aviators and Bombing Six pilots joining the remnant of Warren's squadron. After a while someone suggested a raid on the wardroom for cold meats and coffee, and they marched off in great good humor. Warren dropped out, returned to his bunk, and fell fast asleep. When he awoke he foggily thought it must be the next morning, for he felt refreshed and slept out; but the glowing watch dial read 10:45. He had dozed off for less than half an hour.

  This was no good, he thought. He showered, put on a uniform and a windbreaker, and went topside- A bright moon was paling the stars.

  Warren remembered wondering twenty-four hours ago whether he would live to see stars again. Well, there they were, and here he was.

  As he strode the cool breezy flight deck long mental vistas opened.

  This battle marked a divide in his life-truly "midway" it was!

  He'd been a hellion and tailhound, but an outstanding student, an outstanding engineer, an outstanding deck officer; and he had graduated to gold wings. With some cheerful departures from Dad's prudish ideas and ways, he had really been aping his father. But he had gone past all that in the last twenty-four hours.

  Flying was great, but a few more battles like this would give him a bellyful of glory and achievement. As a peacetime career the Navy was a sterile cramped long pull at bad odds.

  Dad had wasted his life and fine abilities, pretty much. In five combat minutes he, Warren, had done more for the country than Victor Henry had accomplished with his whole naval career. He didn't look down on his father-that could never be, he thought him a man superior to most -but Warren felt sorry for him. The model was out of date.

  His fthere-in-law was a better model. Ike Lacouture moved in the real world of money and politics. By comparison the Navy was a queer little planet whirling in an austere void. It served a purpose, but it was nothing but a tool for the real leaders.

  The fresh wind, the rhythmic walking, relaxed Warren as these notions flickered in his tired mind. This battle wasn't over, and would still draw hard on his stamina and his luck.

  He knew that, but after the worst day the stars still shone on him. He stopped to stretch and yawn, and only then took notice that the Big Dipper and the North Star hung broad on the port beam, and that the yellow moon was sinking dead astern.

  God Almighty, the task force was heading east. Admiral Spruance was withdrawing from a beaten enemy!

  This discovery astounded Warren like nothing else in his life. It violated the first law of the Navy, gravely spelled out in Rocks and Shoals: never to withdraw from possible action; always to seek out a fight; a violation too of a basic maxim of war, to give no respite to a defeated foe. Was there some late about gigantic wuid Jap reinforcements -six fleet carriers 4 something-closing Midway?

  He hurried down to the ready room, and found only Peter Golf, gloomily slouched on his back-tilted chair, puffing at his corncob and staring at the vacant teletype screen. "Where's everybody, Pete?"

  "Oh, still in the wardroom chewing up, I guess."

  "Is there any news?"

  The ensign gave him a bleary sour look. "News? Just that we've got ourselves a chickenshit admiral. Dc you know that we're retreating?"

  "Yes. What's going on?"

  "Who knows? All hell's breaking loose in flag country. You should hear the talk in the wardroom. They're saying Spruance can be court-martialled for this."

  "What's his reason? He must have a reason."

  "Look, this bird just has no stomach for fighting, Warren," said the ensign, his face pink with anger. "The staff could hardly get him to launch today. That's the word. He kept stalling and dillydallying.

  If not for Captain Browning we'd never have gotten off the deck for the first strike. The Japs would have creamed us, instead of the other way around.

  Jesus, if only Halsey hadn't come down with the crud!"

  "Where are we going? Any word on that?"

  "I'm not sure. I think we reverse course again in the morning, so as to give air cover to Midway at dawn. By then, naturally, those yellow monkeys will be halfway back to Japan." Warren yawned, picked up a sandwich from a piled tray, and lounged in the chair beside Golf.

  He was disappointed, but obscurely relieved, too. "Well, we did get the carriers.

  MaYbe he wants to quit while he's ahead. That's not bad poker."

  "Warren, he's blowing our chance to destroy the Jap fleet."

  Warren was too weary to waste words with the youngster.

  "Look, maybe they'll still try to take Midway tomorrow.

  Then it'll be another big day. Better catch some shut-eye."

  "Warren, what did it really feel like, getting that bomb in there?" Rubbing his bushy beard, Pete Golf callowly, awkwardly grinned. "I missed twice, by a country mile."

  "Oh, it was a great feeling. Absolutely great. Nothing like it."

  Warren yawned and stretched. "However, Pete, I'll tell you something.


  On that long flight back, I got to thinking about all those Japs burning up, and their bodies flying around, and those planes going up like firecrackers, and that magnificent ship all wrecked up and frying and drowning everybody. Then I thought we get paid for doing some strange work in this fucking Navy."

  The day broke cloudy. There was no dawn search, and so no daylight attack. At sunrise the task force was plowing through iron-gray swells at a sedate fifteen knots. No air operations whatever had been ordered. On the hangar deck the clang and shriek of all-night airplane repair still echoed.

  In the ready rooms a slump was taking hold. The edgy aviators, having breakfasted at 3 A.M were waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen. By ten the sun was breaking through. Still no orders came. There were no alarms. Except for the turns into the wind to launch and recover the overhead combat patrol, it was like peacetime steaming. The mutterings mounted that the admiral had let the Japs escape.