07:12 hrs
TEARS OF RAGE clouded Fuchida’s eyes. The battle report from Akagi was evident as he tuned in to one of the American frequencies, the pilots exulting. “Scratch a Jap flattop!” one of them shouting. “It’s Akagi, I tell you. Look at that son of a bitch burn. Good work, Mc-Mullen! Danny, you put it right down the bastard’s throat!”
The enemy target was visible ahead. Definitely one Saratoga-class carrier. But only one? Surely both had to be here, for the battles of yesterday indicated they had engaged only Yorktown-class carriers.
Regardless, the target was his, and this time he would make sure it was taken.
“All planes!” he announced, switching on his mike. “Attack the carrier and the carrier only! Attack!”
He wanted to add, avenge the Akagi, but did not want that thought to cloud any of the pilots from his ship, nor reveal more if the enemy was listening.
The torpedo planes were already down low, dropping in fast. The bulk of the American fighters and his own escorting Zeroes were already entangled with them.
The twenty-seven Vals of the strike force, though broken up into four attack groups from the various carriers, began to wing over, one after the other. How he wished he could go in with them, but his admiral had given him clear orders and he felt compelled to obey.
Lexington
“FOR THAT WHICH we are about to receive…” Sherman whispered, watching as the long, apparently endless stream of dive bombers began their runs.
Within only a few minutes, five bombs had smashed into the deck of the old Lady Lex. Three minutes later three torpedoes were into her port side, all of them near the bow, one of the explosions bursting a main aviation gas tank. Several thousand gallons spilled out before it suddenly flashed and exploded in a huge secondary that lifted off the first forty feet of decking, and blew out more of the bow below the waterline.
However hard they had been hit, they had also hit back. At least thirty of the attacking planes had reportedly been dropped by excited Wildcat pilots and gunnery crews. It was damn small compensation.
Damage control reported that the forward hundred feet of the ship was torn wide open, while a bomb hit aft had punched clean down to the port side turbine, blowing it apart. That had shut down one of their props completely. Secondary blasts were cutting through both port and starboard engine rooms.
She was already going down at the bow, flooding so rapidly that it made him think of the stories about the Titanic, which had been torn open forward, stern lifting out of the air until the ship rose nearly vertical before sliding beneath the waves. At the same time the Lex was taking on a sharp list to port, so rapidly that panicked sailors were already abandoning positions below, afraid they would be caught below decks if the carrier rolled over and turtled.
He was responsible for the lives of over two thousand men on board, though only the good Lord knew how many were still here and how many were already dead.
With half this damage, if just below the water line from the torpedoes, or just the bomb hits, he could have put their backs to the wall and ordered a fight to the finish to save this ship. He had never been on a sinking ship before, but all his knowledge and instincts told him that Lexington was dying, and would either go down bow first or roll over.
He sighed, looking over at Admiral Newton, who without comment just nodded in agreement.
“Prepare to abandon ship,” he said softly. “Order destroyers to come alongside to take on survivors. Make sure all wounded are properly evacuated. I want no one left behind.”
The intercom system was entirely knocked out, but the order was passed by mouth, shouted down from the bridge, to fire crews battling the blazes, and then down below, where already men were sensing the inevitable and beginning to stream up to the deck.
Honolulu
THE MOOD IN the hangar was electric. Radio operators were monitoring both Japanese and American frequencies, shouting out reports, everyone cheering with them when the cry went up, “Definitely scratch a flattop. Akagi is burning bow to stern!”
There were backslappings, cheers, a delicious taste of vengeance at last after the heartbreaking confusion of yesterday’s battle of inconclusive reports, and the gut-wrenching sight of the few battered planes returning, pilots numbed with shock.
The voices on the radio sounded exuberant even though squadron leaders were now beginning to report in the heavy toll exacted for their kill: nearly all the Vindicators and Devastators gone, but still, they had made a kill, and once the survivors were refitted and refueled, they would go out and take another of the four carriers reportedly sighted, of which one was definitely finished.
And then the reports from Lexington came in, and then suddenly just went off the air, until one of the ham radio operators announced he had communication with a Wildcat flying combat air patrol. The man’s voice was breaking.
“She’s going down. God damn, they got her, she is going down.”
The gathering in the hangar instantly sobered. There had been hope against hope that Enterprise and the attackers from Oahu had perhaps sunk two of them and that maybe there were only two or three left and Lexington would finish the lot. But the retiring strike wave reported confirmation of at least three carriers still out there, one pilot chiming in that he had seen two more, farther to the south.
“We don’t have a single carrier left in the entire central Pacific,” Collingwood whispered, awake because of all the confusion and now sitting by James’s side.
“What about the orphans?” someone asked, a pilot standing to one side, eyes hollow, hands in pocket. James looked over at him, didn’t recognize him, and saw a squadron insignia on his sleeve indicating Enterprise, the name Dellacroce stenciled on his shirt.
“Order them back here,” General Scales, who had taken command of communication, announced.
There was a moment of silence. Nearly everyone in what was now called the “radio shack” was Army.
“Who knows ranges here?” Scales asked.
The lone Enterprise pilot stepped forward.
“I flew Wildcats,” he announced.
“Your name, son?”
“Lieutenant Dellacroce.”
Scales looked at him appraisingly and then actually went over and shook his hand.
“Heard about you. You’re the pilot who nailed five Japs yesterday. Proud to shake your hand, son. You are America’s first ace in this war. Word’s already out that you’re being put in for the Medal of Honor.”
Dave took his hand, but there was no warmth, only a distant gaze, and James, like so many others, saw and understood that gaze. He was in shock.
James stood up and went over to Dave’s side.
“Tell us what your planes can do. Can they make it back to here?”
“The dive bombers, if fully fueled out, have a range of fifteen hundred miles, but that’s a bunch of civilian-time baloney. Cut that in half for wartime flying, and that is with no damaged fuel tanks. They just might make it. Wildcats, twelve hundred miles, but again, cut that in half, two-thirds if they’ve been dogfighting for fifteen or twenty minutes. A few might make it in.”
“Get the pilot from Lexington on the radio,” Scale said. “All birds from Lexington to head for Oahu or splash down near that civilian freighter off Kauai.”
Lieutenant Dellacroce turned and walked out of the hangar, gaze fixed on the western horizon, where he knew yet more of his comrades were dying, or nursing in damaged planes. He felt nothing other than infinite weariness.
Akagi
08:10 hrs
“SIR, YOU MUST leave the ship now!”
Yamamoto barely heard him, absorbed in other thoughts. Memories of the first time he had walked her deck, even before launch, dreams of what she would be, the backbone of a new modern navy for Japan, his own times aboard her in various command positions, and now this last time as admiral.
He knew her as intimately as he knew his own children. He had seen her grow and change. He had seen the early rickety b
iplanes taking off from her deck, and then this morning, in her final strike, sleek Zeroes, Vals, and Kates.
Another explosion rumbled up from below, and he could see the look of concern in Genda’s eyes. Tucked below the air officer’s arm was a folded canvas bag.
“The Z flag?” Yamamoto asked, and Genda nodded.
“Any still on board?”
“Just those waiting for you, sir.”
“Have all wounded been properly evacuated?”
Genda hesitated.
“Well?”
“Sir, I regret to say that there are still some men trapped far below decks, fires and flooding above giving them no escape. Men too critically injured to be moved,” he sighed. “Sir, they can’t be evacuated. Moving them will kill them anyhow. They beg to go down with their ship.”
He sighed and for the first time in a very long time, others saw tears openly coursing down his weathered cheeks.
“If I leave them behind, what will others say?”
“You have done all that you can possibly do, sir,” Genda replied heatedly. “Remember you yourself said that you would not tolerate the utter foolishness of commanders insisting they go down with their ships. You must now set that example!”
Genda reached out as if to grab his arm but an icy stare caused him to hesitate.
He turned for one look back from the bridge. Akagi was now listing over thirty degrees, the starboard side of the deck awash. A last few were still going over the side just aft amidships, where there was a hole in the fires that entirely engulfed both bow and stern. Two destroyers were close alongside, cargo mats draped over into the water, oil-soaked men looking like black ants climbing up them, while launches were in the water picking up the injured and those too weak to climb. Another destroyer trailed astern, picking up men going off the aft end of the ship.
“Let’s go then,” he said softly and went back through the bridge, which was now empty except for a few of his loyal staff and his personal steward. He hesitated.
“My lighter and cigarette case?” he asked, and his steward smiled, reached into his pocket and pulled them out. The lighter, an American Zippo, keepsake gift from an American captain whose name he could no longer remember; the cigarette case, won in a card game years ago, back at Harvard.
He went out onto the deck. Several firefighters were waiting. They tossed asbestos blankets to him and Genda, draping them over their heads to ward off the intense heat, the blaze consuming the deck. Another explosion lit off below; the ship lurched, as if trying to rise out of the water. Another explosion rippled after the first one; what had been the forward elevator unhinged, lifting up thirty or more feet into the air. The fire crew pressed in around their admiral as fragments and burning pieces of deck came raining down.
The deck was slick with water and firefighting foam. It was nearly impossible to keep his footing, and he slipped, nearly sliding off and into the gun deck, its railing already beneath the water, which was black with oil.
A destroyer was lying fifty yards off, dangerously close if the ship should actually pitch up over and start a death roll. A few cables were slung across, a stretcher case being transferred, and the firefighters directed him to one of the lines. There was still a wounded man waiting to be transferred, face bloated from steam burns, eyes swollen shut.
“Him first,” Yamamoto announced, and no one thought to argue, waiting a few tense moments as the sling was run back over, the stretcher secured.
Water was now lapping up onto the side of the deck. Below came an endless cascade of crashing, as lockers, mess gear, plates, tools, anything that could move was breaking loose, each additional pound of weight shifting Akagi further off balance, adding its mass to the water still pouring in through the holes slashed by the torpedoes.
He could tell she was going.
He looked at Genda and forced a smile.
“Time to go, forget the line,” and he motioned to the water now lapping but a few feet away.
Genda hesitated.
“I am the last one off,” he announced sharply. He turned to the fire and rescue crew, who were preparing to run the transfer line back from the destroyer.
“Into the water, my men. Your duty here is done.”
They hesitated, a few even bowing, refusing until their admiral went first.
“Now! I won’t leave until you do.”
There was hesitation, and the half dozen men stepped off into the oil-slick water and started to swim toward the destroyer. Genda looked at his admiral.
“You promise you will follow. If not, sir, I could never live with the shame of leaving you. I will kill myself if you do not come with me.”
He smiled.
“I can’t allow you to do that. All right then, together, but you take the first step and try and keep our Z flag out of this muck.”
Genda stepped off into the water and he followed suit.
His life belt kept his head well above the water, but the slapping of the choppy water between the two ships splashed oil into his face and eyes, stinging them. It was hard to see as he swam the few strokes over to the destroyer. When crew members aboard realized who was approaching, several jumped in, coming to his side, and he shouted for them to first help Genda, who was floundering, trying to keep one hand above the oil-slicked water, clutching the canvas bag containing the Z flag.
Together they reached the netting, and eager hands pulled him aloft and onto the deck of the destroyer, whose captain stood at rigid attention, saluting the admiral, his white uniform now stained black with oil.
“I am transferring my flag to your ship,” Yamamoto said formally.
“I am humbled and honored by your presence, sir.”
“We’re the last. May I suggest cutting away lines and moving away,” Yamamoto ordered.
Seconds later the lines were cut. The engines slowly revved up, helm put over gently to turn away without swinging their fantail into the dying carrier. He could sense the sighs of relief by all aboard.
Akagi loomed like a giant above them. With the angle of list, the bridge all but towered directly above the small destroyer, threatening to engulf it if the ship should roll, the heat of the inferno consuming the carrier so intense he actually had to shield his face. A sailor offered him a basin of fresh water and a white towel. He made it a point of first passing it to Genda, who rinsed out his eyes, wiped his face somewhat clean, and then with a bow passed the soiled towel back to Yamamoto, who did the same. The sailor took the towel back, clutching it as if were now some honored, historic heirloom.
They were making way, standing a hundred yards off, then a hundred and fifty.
Another explosion, this one bursting somewhere below the water line, flame and a geyser of water soaring up, the great ship lurching; then more explosions, louder. He sensed it must be the torpedo or bomb lockers far below, their detonations ripping out the keel of the ship.
She started to settle, list now over sixty degrees, and then the death plunge began, deck nearly vertical so that for a moment it looked as if she would indeed roll over, and then this beloved ship simply died, like a beloved dog that drew a final breath and then slowly laid its head down. Resting on her starboard side, stern angling down slightly, Akagi settled deeper and deeper, great blasts of air, steam, and smoke venting out her starboard side, water foaming.
To his horror he saw a few men were still on board after all. Somehow they had made it up to stand precariously on what had been the side of the ship, perhaps blown clear out by the blasts of air escaping the ship. One of them actually appeared to salute. A sigh, a cry went up from all those watching and Yamamoto, crying unashamedly, saluted back. In spite of his belief in the absurdity of the tradition of a highly trained officer feeling compelled to die with his ship when rescue was but yards away, he felt a wave of guilt for leaving those who had been trapped aboard.
And then she was gone. Oil and smoke bubbled up from the foaming sea; a moment later explosions rocked the destroyer as they tore
through Akagi even as she started her long slide down to the ocean floor. Then there was nothing but an oil-slick sea, wreckage bubbling up, and the vast ocean had claimed another victim of the war.
A bugler on the destroyer sounded a ceremonial flourish, a salute to the fallen. All bowed their heads, and nearly all wept. A lone Zero came down low, skimming over the water, and then pulled up, rocking its wings in salute.
Over Akagi
FUCHIDA WEPT WITH them. The strike wave that had destroyed Lexington was returning, and those who had flown off their beloved Akagi were being ordered to land on any carrier available.
But he could not leave her yet as he pulled up from his salute, circling one more time before breaking toward Kaga, to go into the landing pattern… and then he saw it. A thin, almost invisible wake was closing in on Kaga but two miles ahead.
“Submarine two miles off Kaga’s bow!” he shouted, sending the message in the clear, and he dived over, lining up, and began to strafe. With luck perhaps one of his twenty-millimeter rounds just might strike the periscope, but at least his gunfire would mark the position.
USS Thresher
“SHIT!”
“Dive! Take her deep!”
Captain Lubbers slapped up the handles of the periscope, stepping back, a petty officer hitting the periscope down button. There was a vibration—something had hit the periscope. Thresher started to arc down.
Another minute at most, and he could have put four fish into that other damn carrier. It had been coming straight at him.
“Damn it!”
Through the hull he could hear soft thumps, explosions. He cursed that damn Zero, which he had only caught a glimpse of, as water began to foam up around the periscope lens.
“We better get ready. They’ve spotted us,” was all he said, heading down from the periscope room to the main deck.
“Did you get that signal out about the Jap carrier sinking?” he asked, looking over at his radio operator, who grinned, nodded, and gave him a thumbs up.
Days of Infamy Page 32