The heavy cruiser Indianapolis lay thirty yards off, precisely matching speed and course, a dozen lines and cables linking the two ships—electrical cables to provide additional power for pumps, bosun’s chairs for the transfer of the less critically wounded and slings for the stretcher cases, hoists for the transfer of portable pumps, foam generators, and medical supplies.
Indianapolis had swung in alongside at nautical twilight and Halsey had already announced that regardless of the condition of Enterprise, she was to cast off and move away just before moonrise in a little less than four hours.
The Japs had a fix on them, and submarines might be closing in, like hyenas circling a wounded beast, ready to dart in for a kill. He would not risk what was now one of the two heaviest ships America still had in the entire Pacific.
To his dismay, Indianapolis had informed them that they had little fuel oil to spare, having engaged in high-speed maneuvers prior to the war warning.
Halsey now was facing a choice perhaps even tougher than his decision of the night before to turn north and alone seek out the entire Japanese fleet, with the forlorn hope that he just might get a first strike and a killing blow. Do I go back to Pearl or turn due east and run for the West Coast?
The second choice was damn near impossible now. Even if they did survive the night and contain the fires still raging below, somehow block off the holes cut into their hull by the torpedoes, pump out the decks above the starboard engine room, where miraculously the crew trapped down there were still alive and thus keeping the ship alive, and somehow make speed again on two or three of their four screws—even with all that they would run dry a thousand miles off the coast, and the accompanying destroyers would have lost steam long before that.
Enterprise had hemorrhaged out too much precious fuel oil, and a good portion of the rest was now polluted with seawater due to emergency counterflooding. Still, Stubbs had announced they might be able to pump out the contaminated fuel and somehow distill out enough of the water so that what was left could burn.
And, yet, if I turn back toward Pearl? What guarantee was there that tomorrow, the Jap fleet in its entirety would be waiting for him? Though the Big E was one hell of a fighting lady, even with his pride in her, he knew that one more hit would most likely prove fatal, especially if it was a torpedo. Even if the Jap fleet was no longer near the island—and a gut instinct told him they would not be—they undoubtedly were facing fuel issues as well, and that meant they were most likely steaming westward, to some reserve tankers positioned in the Marshalls. Nevertheless, the waters would be crawling with their subs, and making ten knots or less, the carrier was easy prey and they would go for it.
Once into Pearl, then what? Their radio contacts were coming back on line, one of them a definite link to the mainland. They were not yet encoding, but at least speaking cryptically. Some smart guy had come up with the idea of using Hungarian, figuring that was a language that, at least within the Japanese fleet, no one would have a clue about. They had a native-born speaker on the island and back on the mainland they had scrambled and found someone who could speak it as well. Thank God one of the messroom stewards on board the Enterprise was born in Budapest, knew the lingo, and had suddenly found himself in the CIC, providing translation.
Even then they spoke cryptically. The whole world could listen in if tuned to the right frequency. Tokyo would figure it out soon enough and find someone, most likely from the embassy of Hungary, now a tacit Axis ally, who would help them out.
Mention was made that the “big bathtub” broke. That was easy enough to figure out. Number one drydock, the only facility that could contain Enterprise, or for that matter Lexington, was out of operation. The primary damage below the waterline would be impossible to repair at Pearl without that dry dock.
A civilian radio station, the damn fools, had already broadcast that the oil tank farms were ablaze, but then again that didn’t need any coding; the Japs clearly must have known that.
It was even doubtful if they could clear the main channel, according to a report that “a key was broken off in the lock and it couldn’t be opened.”
There had been some head scratching on that one, the mess steward swearing he got it right, until one of the radio operators figured it out. The various channels of Pearl Harbor were referred to as lochs, and it must mean the main entryway was blocked by wreckage.
So, no sense to turn toward Pearl, run the gauntlet of subs, and then find themselves sitting five miles offshore, unable to head in, perhaps for days.
Pearl was out, but there was one tragic point to that besides trying to save the ship. At least three hundred men on board were dead, another five hundred injured, many of them badly burned. Every surgeon and corpsman on board had been frantically at work since dawn. One of the doctors from Indianapolis had already transferred over, along with cases of plasma, sulfa, morphine, and anesthesia, but it was still nowhere near enough.
If they took the long road back to the States, it’d take at least two weeks or more, and of those five hundred, many would die who could have been saved, and even those who were saved would be in agony.
He had ventured below deck an hour ago, making a stop at one of the triage centers. Across all the years of his career, those had been the toughest minutes. At least fifty men had been “set aside,” too badly injured to be saved here, though back on the mainland, with enough doctors available, some most likely would make it.
Most were unconscious or doped with increasingly scarce morphine. But some were fully conscious. No amount of morphine would be able to deaden the agony of flash burns, or the parboiling of human flesh from blasts of superheated steam from ruptured lines.
He tried to make eye contact, speak a few words of encouragement, and tell them how proud he was of them. Some could not reply, and some looked at him vacantly as if no longer knowing who he was. One had asked him to write his mother, and he promised he would, a petty officer taking down her address on a napkin, which he had put in his breast pocket. The toughest one, though, was an old hand, a chief petty officer, whom he had some recollection of from years ago, but now it was nearly impossible to recognize the man, his face so contorted with pain. The petty officer held his hand up and Halsey had knelt down by his side to take it.
“I’m proud of our Big E, sir,” he gasped, “and, sir, I’m proud of you. Don’t give up the ship.”
He could not reply, merely nodded, squeezed the man’s hand and moved on. Once out in the corridor, he struggled not to break down. Too many were watching. He fought the exhaustion; he had had less than four hours sleep in the last two days. After the risky maneuver with Indianapolis was finished, maybe then he would go to his cabin, close the door, and try to block things out for a few hours.
A heavy jet of water burst from near the stern of the Indianapolis, just barely visible in the starlight. There was the red glow of battle lanterns, shining against the side of Enterprise, penetrating in through the hole just above the waterline where a torpedo had hit. Another hose stretched from the Indianapolis opened up, aimed at the still-smoking machine shop on the hangar deck, its power and volume far exceeding the overstressed fire pumps on board ship, freeing up electrical power which Stubbs, turning to an assistant, ordered should now be transferred to one of the drain pumps fighting against the water flooding in from the aft torpedo hit.
“Sir.”
Both turned, it was a seaman first class, breathing hard, uniform blackened, soaking wet and stinking of oil.
“Go ahead,” Stubbs replied.
“Lieutenant Anderson reports that the last of the aviation gas, except for a thousand gallons safely secured in a forward tank, has been jettisoned overboard. Ventilators are working now, pumping out the fumes overboard as well.”
“Very well, and congratulate the lieutenant on a job well done.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.”
The seaman saluted and started to run back across the deck, disappearing into the dark.
Ruptured av-gas tanks were perhaps the biggest fear on board a carrier. Fuel oil could burn, but rarely would the fumes explode. The hundred-octane aviation gas, however, was nothing less than a giant bomb below decks. Not only would it burn like an inferno if ignited, but if a fuel tank was ruptured and the fumes blown through the ship, and a single spark hit those fumes, and the mixture between gas in the air and oxygen was just right, the explosion could be more deadly than any bomb ever dropped. It could sink them, and from the battleship admirals’ side, had always been one of the main arguments against putting trust in a carrier, which could never sustain any kind of damage and survive, let alone return to the fight.
She had been hit twice this morning and still launched a second strike, she’d been hit again, and by God, she would survive.
“Stubbs, can you get us back to the West Coast?” Halsey asked.
“Sir?”
“You heard me.”
“So Pearl is out, sir?”
“Unless that Hungarian mess steward later proves to be a damn idiot or some sort of Nazi agent helping out the Japs, we both know our chances of making it through their subs back to the island are not that good.
“There’s a chance they still might be within air range of the island and they’ll be on us like flies on”—he hesitated, no way in hell was he going to compare his ship to a heap of cow flop—“well, like carrion buzzards. The channel is most likely still blocked, and even if we get into the harbor, the main drydock is gone. So it’s the dry-dock at San Diego or nothing.”
Stubbs stood silent, thinking it over.
“Our fuel?”
“You promised you could figure out a way to distill out the seawater from the fuel that’s polluted down to the point where we can use it in the boilers.”
“I’ll try, sir, but we’ll burn fuel like mad to heat it enough to cook off the seawater, so it’s only a partial tradeoff. I’ll work up the calculations, though.”
“You saying we can’t make it?”
“What about the destroyers? They’ll be dry in a matter of days.”
“Then we abandon them,” Halsey said coldly, “transfer their crews aboard, and then sink them if need be.”
“Can we raise an oil tanker for a rendezvous, sir?”
Now it was Halsey’s turn to hesitate, to balance the risks. He knew the tanker Neosho was somewhere out at sea between Hawaii and San Francisco.
We turn east, stay out of the main shipping lanes. The random chance of a Jap sub finding them was remote in another day or so. Broadcast a request for an oiler and set a rendezvous point. There might be a wolf pack of them sitting there waiting rather than the oiler.
“I’ll think about it,” was all he said.
Stubbs nodded.
“If you can keep her afloat, Stubbs, I’ll get us to the Coast, somehow.”
Stubbs could not help but smile and extend his hand, which Halsey clasped warmly.
Akagi
230 miles west of Oahu
19:50 hrs local time
THOSE GATHERED AROUND him in the small conference room were silent, some from exhaustion, others obviously from depression. In a sense it was understandable. They had been at nearly continuous battle conditions for two days.
Their first two blows had been nearly bloodless victories, but the task then, especially with the realization of the utter, insane failure of the Foreign Ministry to deliver the declaration of war before the attack at Pearl, had required that he must continue the attack now, while the Americans were still reeling. They had to be like the sumo wrestler who nearly had his opponent off balance, but now had to push the rest of the way, regardless of exhaustion.
The third strike had come at a price, a loss of planes equal to that of the first two raids together, but the damage inflicted had been worth that price.
It was the results of today that had worn his men down, changing their exultation to this state of worried exhaustion.
Yamamoto settled back in his chair, scanning the faces. Kusaka, the chief of staff to Nagumo, whom he had kept on… Yamamoto knew of course that pessimism would emanate from him, perhaps now infect others, and he debated yet again whether perhaps he should just relieve him of his post now. No, he was already an enemy and well connected politically. There would be tough questions enough to answer in Tokyo once this campaign was finished. Removing Kusaka, thereby removing him as well from any potential connection to the inevitable further losses, would in fact enhance the man’s influence in Tokyo.
Genda and Fuchida were their typical selves, though he could sense their frustration and grief. Commander Kijuru, the damage control officer for Akagi, was blackened, head half lowered. Perhaps for him more than anyone in the room this had been the longest of days.
“The loss of Hiei was tragic. All of us mourn comrades lost,” he said, opening the meeting and going straight to the point without any of the protocols of a few minutes of personal talk, his inquiring as to the health and condition of those gathered.
“That is the price of war. To repeat again an Americanism: one cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs. When this campaign was first planned and war-gamed, we concluded that upward of half our aircraft would be lost in the opening move, and one or more carriers as well. We, therefore, are far ahead of the game.”
“Sir, the loss of a battleship is, in my mind, not just a playing piece of a game; it is one of the most valuable assets of His Majesty’s power,” Kusaka replied sharply.
“Are battleships so precious that they are like ancient swords?” Yamamoto snapped. “A weapon so precious that it just hangs on the wall of its owner’s home, and even if the owner is attacked, is too precious to be drawn and perhaps nicked? That is the attitude I hear.
“War is risk; war does not mean we are destined to bloodless victories. Whatever harm the Americans have inflicted upon us, we have leveled back a hundredfold.”
“And yet we lost the Hiei,” Kusaka replied with intensity. Frustrated, knowing exhaustion was overwhelming him, he could not let it pass.
“The Hiei delivered tremendous damage to the American bases before she was hit. She took out several of their destroyers and a cruiser. She shot down dozens of their planes. And, I must add, she absorbed a first air strike that could have destroyed one or more of our carriers.”
“And you rate the destruction of a carrier as more tragic than the loss of His Majesty’s battleship?” came the heated reply.
“Yes I do!”
“I shall remember that,” and the threat was clear.
“Remember it then,” Yamamoto snapped angrily. “Yesterday morning our planes put out of action eight of their battleships, the entire fleet which we had once feared would disrupt our strategic moves to the south. Our southern fleets are now free to move without fear. I think that shows the future of where the true strength in naval battle now rests.
“Hiei died gallantly. Her memory will not be forgotten. She inflicted far more damage than ever dreamed possible. She allowed our planes to track their Yorktown-class carriers and sink one, possibly two of them. If we believe a sword to be so precious it cannot be drawn and risked in battle, then why even have the sword?”
Kusaka bristled but did not reply.
He shifted attention to his damage control officer, Kijuru.
“Our status?” he asked coldly, trying to contain his anger at Kusaka.
“Sir, we will be ready to resume operations by morning.”
“Excellent work.”
“Sir, what of Soryu?” Kusaka asked.
“It is not good,” Genda interjected, sensing that he should somehow intervene to prevent another explosive confrontation.
Yamamoto looked over at him, as if sensing Genda’s reasoning.
“Go on.”
“We received a coded report twenty minutes ago. Soryu is stable but cannot yet be counted on to be ready for battle. For the moment it is out of the fight. Its s
urviving planes are aboard Hiryu. Even then, between what were the strike forces of two carriers, they can now only muster fifteen bombers and twelve Zeroes for action.”
Yamamoto made no reply; he already knew some of the details, having looked over Genda’s shoulder while the telegraphed report had been decoded.
“How many total planes can we have ready for an offensive strike at dawn?” Yamamoto asked.
“Sir, at least a hundred and ten, with sufficient reserves held back for air cover over the fleet, search operations, and as a secondary strike if required. I suggest that the reserve be the planes on Hiryu. They have fought enough these last two days.”
He sat back, closing his eyes. There was no need to even look at the charts.
By morning they would be well out of range of Oahu, though perhaps if any American B-17s were left, an attack could be expected; however, that plane, though proving to be highly effective at scouting and spotting at sea, was woefully inadequate for strikes against fast-moving ships.
“Our oil supplies?” he asked, and that was definitely Kusaka’s territory.
“Barely adequate now for reaching our reserve oilers in the Marshalls. The number of reversals of course today in order to launch and recover planes consumed far more than we had planned.”
Yet again the damn reproach just barely concealed. But he was right. The northeasterly winds were blowing exactly opposite the course desired. Coming about, speeding up to launch and recover, then reversing back onto course had nearly doubled the intended distance traveled today, and still they were less than two hundred fifty miles away from Oahu.
If indeed there was still an American carrier or carriers to the west, the damn wind favored them, since they would be steaming into it.
Also, the question now was how to deploy the fleet. Concentrate? Soryu would not be operational tomorrow; it needed to be covered while its planes were out of action. But concentration meant contracting the search range. Or spread the force into three groups of two, or two groups of three? Keep them within mutual support range, but spaced a hundred miles apart, thus extending search ranges out over an additional fifteen thousand square miles of ocean or more.
Days of Infamy Page 27