He lined up, turning onto final while still out to sea, wagging his wings.
Something hit. He saw flashes of gunfire from down on the beach. From a thousand feet up he could see men running about, more flashes, and a few tracers going wide.
Damn idiots, if I make this in alive I’m going to go over there and kick someone’s butt, he thought.
A glimpse of motion to starboard, a plane turning.
God no, not more Japs!
It turned: a Brewster Buffalo, flying slow, wagging its wings. Pilot guiding in alongside him, canopy back, a wave and then pointing forward.
Someone was thinking down there. The Buffalo, edging ahead, leading him in. An Army plane, more recognizable to all the trigger-happy fools on the ground.
He saw Hickam, a nice long runway. A moment of fear: a bulldozer out in the middle of the runway plowing dirt into a massive crater. He’d have to come in and touch down long, clearing the crater. The control tower was gone, only smoking wreckage. The trade winds were blowing, and smoke from the burning oil fields half obscured the main landing strip.
He throttled back, mixture rich, adjusted prop. He felt a bit of a shudder—one of the props must have been hit; he could feel the vibration.
Ease back a bit on the stick… throttle closed off.
Damn! A few more tracers, and then it stopped, the Buffalo still leading the way, just ahead, frantically wagging its wings as a signal to those on the ground that the incoming planes were friendlies.
He could barely make out the bulldozer, and someone atop it waving his arms as if to signal him to break off.
Dumb idiot, of course I can see you, he thought, but I gotta land somewhere!
He cleared the dozer, felt the ground effect take hold, the Wild cat floating. Pull the stick back, it was nearly in his gut… a lurch, bit of a bounce, another lurch… he was down.
He stuck his head out to see past the nose of his plane, caught a glimpse of a ground crewman, waving for him to taxi left. He followed the man’s lead, turning off the runway, knowing that his comrades were coming in only seconds behind him.
The blessed Buffalo was soaring back up, turning over the harbor, disappearing into the smoke.
He was off the runway. There was nothing but wreckage, burned-out hulks of dozens of planes, some still smoldering. There was another bulldozer at work, simply plowing the once proud aircraft aside.
His ground crewman signaled for shutdown. He gave a brief throttle up, then cut it back and threw the magneto switch off. The propeller spun for a few more seconds and then came to a stop. The blade pointed nearly to the vertical… was twisted back at the leading edge, half a foot chopped away.
Someone was up on his wing.
“You from the Enterprise, sir?”
He looked at the young Army corporal.
He couldn’t speak, just merely nodded.
“Let me help you out, sir.”
He felt strong hands grasp him. He didn’t protest, he wasn’t even sure if he could actually stand up. Someone else was up on the wing, helping. He stepped out of the cockpit, legs wobbly, glad for the help, and climbed down.
The air was thick, acrid, stinking of burning oil, gas, that strange metallic smell of melted aluminum.
The first of the Dauntlesses was touching down. His two remaining Wildcats were parked to either flank of his own plane. Gregory was not moving. Someone was shouting for a medic. He should go over, but knew he just couldn’t, not for a minute or two.
He just stood on the ground, knees trembling, breathing in the warm tropical air that stank of destruction. An ambulance, red cross on its side, pulled up. A couple of medics jumped out, and one ran over to Gregory’s plane.
He couldn’t move, barely realizing that one of the ground crew still had an arm around him.
This must be what hell looks like, feels like. The funeral pyre of planes lining the runway, the smoking wreckage of the control tower, the massive inferno of the burning oil fields, the battleships he had caught a glimpse of on his way in. Jesus, how different from but two weeks ago, when Enterprise had put to sea, its crew grumbling once clear of Pearl because the old man had announced they were not going out for just a few days of maneuvers, but were making a delivery run to Wake Island. And now coming back to this.
“Christ almighty, look at this!”
He half turned. More ground crew were coming, almost like orphans whose own planes had been taken away, and now at least a few others had come back for them to nurse. One of the men was pointing to a hole in the fuselage, just aft of the canopy, big enough to put one’s fist through. In fact his entire plane seemed like a sieve. Part of his vertical stabilizer was blown clean off.
He still couldn’t react, turning to watch as the last of the four Dauntlesses touched down, bounced hard, almost nosed over in recovery, slammed down hard with a jolt. One by one the four planes taxied over to line up beside the Wildcats. On the third plane, he could see the tail gunner slumped over, a horrifying sight. Nearly decapitated, the gunner must have been hit by a twenty-millimeter shell or a piece of flak. His blood had streamed out, caking the aft end of the plane. The pilot was wounded as well; ground crew were running up to help.
“You OK, sir?”
It was the corporal who was still holding on to him.
He nodded, not speaking.
A medic came up to him, practiced eyes scanning.
“Sir, why don’t you come over here and sit down.”
The medic put his arm around Dave’s other side, and they walked the few dozen feet to the ambulance and he sat down on the tailgate… and then the shaking hit.
He felt nothing but shame. He was supposed to be going around now, slapping his comrades on the back. That’s the way they always showed it in the movies. What comrades? I had a dozen this morning; there’s three of us left—and as he watched them gingerly lifting Gregory out of his cockpit he wondered if it was down to two. Gregory wasn’t moving.
“You hit, sir?”
He looked up at the medic, still not able to speak, afraid if he did so it would just be childlike gibberish, or worse yet, tears. He shook his head, but he could feel the corpsman running his hands over his body as someone helped to take off his Mae West, leather helmet, and goggles.
“Sir, we heard you got the bastards good!”
He looked up. It was a young army lieutenant, holding a clipboard.
He didn’t react.
“Your name, sir?”
“Dellacroce, David.”
The lieutenant wrote it down.
“How many of their planes did you get?”
How many?
Was it one on the first strike? Two on the second?
The kid stood there eager, waiting, pencil poised. Kid? Hell, he’s most likely five years older than me, but still he somehow looks like a kid. He’s not yet been “out there.”
He didn’t say anything, just stared at him.
“The guy’s in shock,” someone whispered. “Leave him alone for now.”
“I’ve got an intelligence report to fill out.”
Behind the intelligence officer the oil fields were burning. An explosion made him flinch; the others didn’t seem to react.
“Sir, drink this.”
The medic handed him a paper cup. He didn’t ask what it was, he just upended it. The whiskey hit with a jolt, warming, easing.
He saw Struble approaching, walking slowly, as if drunk. He started to stand up, but Struble motioned for him not to move and then just extended his hand.
“You OK?”
He nodded.
“Goddamn bomb switches,” Struble snapped angrily. “But still we left the bastard burning.”
“I saw.”
“The Devastators?”
He could only shake his head. “All gone.”
No one spoke for a moment.
“Who did the suicide? I saw him hit. Damn, the whole aft end of the carrier was burning.”
“I think i
t was Mina.”
“God damn, I want to see that he gets the Medal of Honor for that one.”
“As if it matters to him now,” Dave said softly.
Struble looked at the intelligence officer.
“Where’s the ready room? Where do we go?”
“We’re using the mess hall. The ready room got blown away in the bombardment last night.”
“I want these planes turned around.” It was a chief petty officer walking past the ambulance. “Patch what you can, load up, they’re going back up!”
“We’re going back up?” Dave asked.
Struble said nothing. Just turned and walked away.
Dave bowed his head, sick with the thought that others would see the terror in his own eyes.
“Excuse us, sir.”
He looked back up. It was the stretcher bearing Gregory’s body, blood leaking through the wool blanket that covered him.
“Damnedest thing,” the medic escorting the body said, looking at Dave. “He was dead in the cockpit. The kid must have hung on to bring his plane in, and once safely down, he died. The damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Dave stood to one side, again looking about at the landscape of total devastation. It was not how he had ever imagined war to be. It was supposed to be knights jousting in the skies. You salute an enemy as he wings over in flames, share a drink with him later if he survives. That was the stuff he had read about in the pulp fiction about the last war.
The last war… Nothing in there about the burning, the stench, the fear, the way blood dripped from Gregory’s stretcher as they hoisted it up and slid it into the back of the meat wagon.
Greg’s fiancée. He couldn’t remember her name. Was it Carol, Carolyn, or Kathy? If I get out of this, I have to go see her, tell her.
“Sir, you want a ride?” It was one of the medics, beckoning to the back of the ambulance.
He shook his head, and the door was slammed shut, the ambulance roaring off across the runway.
The Dauntless pilots stood in a cluster, watching it go. His one surviving squad mate—he blanked on what his name was—was with them, all of them smoking.
He slowly walked over to join them, feeling wobbly. They looked at him appraisingly as he approached, and he wondered if they knew what was in his heart, the terror.
Struble extended his hand.
“Heard how you stayed with the Devastators, took down two Japs.”
“I don’t quite remember,” was all he could say.
The intelligence officer was hovering to one side and made the ridiculous sound of clearing his throat and holding up his clip board.
“Ah, gentlemen, I have to file an intelligence report.”
Struble looked over at him coldly.
“We bombed a Jap carrier, it definitely took one hit amidships, maybe two. One of the Devastator pilots rammed it. Think it was the Soryu, or maybe the Hiryu. Left it burning from one end to the other, it’s a goner.”
The lieutenant scribbled down some notes.
“Now, who dropped the bombs that hit”—and then he turned to Dave—“and how many of their planes did you shoot down?”
Struble stepped up to the lieutenant and shoved him back, nearly knocking him over.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” Struble shouted. “Enterprise launched sixty planes this morning. We’re what’s left. Now get the hell away from us or so help me God you’re dead. Leave us alone!”
Startled, the lieutenant stepped back, Struble eyeing him coldly.
Those standing around watching were silent, some turning away so if need be they could claim they had not witnessed an officer striking another.
The lieutenant straightened himself.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I didn’t know,” and he walked away.
Struble turned back to look at Dave.
“Who flew that Devastator?” he asked softly.
“I think it was Mina,” Dave said woodenly.
“Be like him,” Struble replied.
“Kid in the back seat, it would have been Anderson. Good kid, flew with me several times,” one of the other Dauntless pilots whispered, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out another cigarette, lighting it off the butt of the one he was just finishing.
He offered the pack to Dave, who without comment nodded and took a cigarette as Struble flicked open his Zippo and helped him light it, almost gently holding his hand so others would not see he was trembling.
It was his first cigarette. It went straight to his head. He liked it. If anything, it blocked out the other smells blanketing the field.
They slowly started to walk toward the mess hall, no one speaking.
Strange, he thought of a college lit class, a professor reading from Henry V. “We few, we happy few …”
Bullshit. Six out of sixty. We few, we sick, terrified few…
Akagi
“SORYU IS SEVERELY damaged, but already had half its planes aloft when they were attacked, and Hiryu’s group has joined them. They have a good fix on the target and are closing.”
Yamamoto nodded as Genda spoke.
Charts were spread out on the table, latest positions marked.
Soryu and Hiryu were a hundred and twenty miles to the south. The other three carriers of his group were within five miles, having steamed with him.
He had yet to pinpoint the Saratoga-class carriers. He was all but certain now they were not to the south, so they had to be to the west.
Launch a strike to support Soryu and Hiryu? By the time my planes get up there, what was left could already be sunk, two hundred fifty miles away. Then what if we do spot two more carriers to our west? I could be outnumbered more than two to one.
He said nothing, closing his eyes.
One of two things. Either there was one American carrier to the south—it had launched the first strike against Hiei, its torpedo squadron not participating, recovered its planes, and launched the second strike, which they had just faced—or there was indeed a second carrier, and the claim by the Soryu pilots of a kill was correct. Both of them might very well be sunk already. There was no definite report of actually seeing one go down, only the excited claims of pilots who saw the hits, and then the confusion about whether the second ship was even a carrier after all.
Too many variables, he thought. His instincts told him that at least one, maybe two of their ships were still to the west, otherwise the attack on Soryu would not have been a dozen or so planes, it would have been a hundred or more.
“Sir, we need to come about anyhow now to recover our combat air patrol and the returning search planes,” Genda said quietly.
He remained silent, staring at the chart, drawing imaginary lines, sorting the complexities, and of course gambling out the odds.
At last he stirred.
“Hiryu and Soryu can finish off what is to the south. We keep our strike aircraft in reserve until we pinpoint their Saratoga-class carriers, which I am convinced are west of us.”
Genda nodded excitedly. Fuchida, who was standing in the corner of the room, looked at his admiral hopefully. Perhaps the ban on his flying today would be lifted.
“And Hiei?” his chief of staff asked.
“It is finished,” Yamamoto said coldly.
“Are you abandoning one of his Majesty’s most valuable ships?” Kusaka asked heatedly.
“Yes, I am,” Yamamoto replied coldly. “It has served its purpose well. The Americans have a saying, that one cannot make an omelet without breaking an egg. Hiei revealed the presence of at least one of their carriers and destroyed numerous planes and shore facilities. If we are afraid to risk our battleships, and at times lose one, then why bother to have them in the first place? With such thinking we should leave them anchored in Tokyo Bay for the rest of the war.”
Kusaka opened his mouth as if to reply, then just turned away.
“The rest of our planes?” Genda asked.
“Held in reserve. I want all remaining
strike planes fully loaded, ready for launch. We turn about just long enough to recover our air patrols and search planes, send up the next wave of searchers and air cover, then come about again to the west.
“You are dismissed.”
The group filed out, leaving him alone, his attention focused on the map.
Is that Halsey still to the south? Or is he somewhere to the west? Strange, in the battles of long ago, you knew your opposing general or admiral. You could even see him and seek him out for single combat.
So is this single combat now? Halsey and me? The aggressiveness of their response indicated Halsey, who bore the reputation that of all the American carrier commanders he was the most reckless and daring. It was obvious he had tried to place his first strike over Hiei by dawn, not to hit the battleship, but to track on the incoming defensive fighters. He had lost that gambit.
There was another problem emerging. The damn wind from the northeast. It meant coming about and running up to flank speed every time they had to recover and launch. It was eating up too much fuel, far more than he had calculated. To send out a strike wave now, against a target at extreme range, then maybe have to come about yet again if the Saratoga or Lexington was discovered closer in… Fuel would become tight indeed. This was a new reality that would have to be factored into all future thinking about fleet campaigns. It was the destroyers running low on fuel that defined everything. The big ships were fine, but the little ships got very empty very quickly.
He realized he was learning something new here, in this the first carrier-to-carrier battle in history. He who found the other first usually won—but the question was, how do you find him? There was far more random chance in this than perhaps in any other form of battle in history—and it appealed to his gambler instincts.
Enterprise
HE WAS BACK up on the bridge, watching as the last of the temporary planking was laid down to cover the hole in the deck astern. Up forward, the smoldering fires had been contained.
The four destroyers and two cruisers escorting were ringed in close to provide covering fire, one more several miles ahead trying to spot for subs. They were running at thirty knots. If a Jap sub was out there, its only hope of getting in a shot would be from head on. The other three destroyers were now forty miles aft, picking up survivors from Salt Lake City, which had gone down minutes after being hit.
Days of Infamy Page 15