EAST WIND RETURNS
By William Peter Grasso
Kindle Edition
Copyright 2011 William Peter Grasso
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The cover for East Wind Returns was designed by Alyson Aversa
East Wind Returns is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales or to living persons is entirely coincidental.
Chapter One
July 1945
New Mexico Desert
The lone steel tower rises above the desert emptiness in the early morning sunlight. At its apex is cradled America’s first nuclear weapon. This weapon, the product of the top secret Manhattan Project, promises destructive power on a scale that few have dared to envision. Several years in development under heavy security and in the isolation offered by this desert, it provides the possibility for unparalleled dominance of the United States over its World War II opponents--as well as its allies. Now, with Germany finished and American troops poised on Japan’s doorstep, it offers the United States another avenue to force Japan’s unconditional surrender, ending the war once and for all.
If it works.
It is estimated that the force of this anticipated explosion will equal that of 20,000 tons of TNT--equivalent to 2000 of America’s biggest bombers carrying conventional, high-explosive bomb loads. All from just 13 pounds of plutonium.
Miles from the tower, General Leslie Groves, Manhattan Project director, and his chief scientist, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, stand in the control bunker and squint downrange through the thick glass of the slit-like windows as they oversee the final preparations. Developing this weapon had proved difficult both technically and psychologically. The strain of the many conflicts that had raged between these two men over those years is manifest in every brusque utterance. Oppenheimer is sure he knows what Groves is thinking:
We shouldn’t even be in this position, with the whole damn project riding on this plutonium bomb…We should have had that uranium bomb already. Didn’t even need to test the son of a bitch. Foolproof, they said. But the fire…and that radioactive hotspot it left that we can’t get within a mile of…all the enriched uranium we had, ruined. It had to be one of those commie scientists sabotaging the project...
Oppenheimer wished that fire had not happened, too. But he sharply disagreed with the General about its likely cause:
It must have been some idiot military policeman who caused it, failing to properly extinguish the cigarette he knew was against all regulations. When given a choice between conspiracy and negligence, I’ll choose negligence every time…especially when dealing with the military.
Two facts were inescapable: they no longer had enough enriched uranium to make a simple, if inefficient, atom bomb, and it would take quite some time to enrich more uranium. They had plenty of plutonium, though, but this type of bomb, while superior in destructive efficiency, was not so simple to build. They would have to test it to be sure the 5000 pounds of high explosive could successfully squeeze the 13 pounds of plutonium to critical mass. There was another problem with this bomb: it already weighed 10,000 pounds, the maximum load that could be carried in a B-29’s bomb bay.
With a nod from General Groves, Oppenheimer lifts the safety guard on the panel before him. As they drop shaded goggles over their eyes, Groves says, “This better be one hell of a bang, Robert.”
With his finger resting on the button, Robert Oppenheimer is not sure if he is reaching out to destiny or damnation. There is only one way to find out. He presses it.
Not a breath is drawn for several seconds. Then several more seconds. But there is no bang--just a wisp of smoke from the top of the tower and a dull thud, like a distant firecracker, several seconds later. There is no blinding flash. No shock wave crushing structures to splinters. No intense heat to incinerate flesh in an instant. No desert floor turned to glass…
And no mushroom cloud. Just the sound of the wind across the parched sands.
Hungnan Island, Occupied Korea
Professor Isoroku Inaba stands on the coastal bluff and stares, awestruck, out to sea. The blinding flash has extinguished; the professor and his party--scientists and military men--remove their shaded goggles and watch as a towering mushroom cloud billows to the heavens 30 kilometers out to sea. The delayed rumble of the explosion, painfully loud despite the distance it has traveled, assaults their ears. Seconds later, a sudden, warm wind--the weakened remnants of the explosion’s shock wave--sways them and sends caps flying.
The military men excitedly proclaim it a divine wind from the east.
What Professor Inaba has just witnessed is an unbelievable success, a success he had grave doubts would ever be achieved and a secret wish that it would not be. He is a physicist who has explored peaceful uses for nuclear energy. Like most of his fellow scientists, however, he had been forced to develop weapons for Imperial Japan. When summoned by the Emperor, you went.
The nuclear device he developed had just detonated with a force equal to 15,000 tons of TNT. A fleet of derelict vessels had surrounded the device to a distance of 5 kilometers to measure the blast’s effect. Those vessels had been torched by the blast, swamped by the shock wave and sent to the bottom.
A saki toast is prepared. Raising his cup to his assembled staff, Inaba’s voice trembles. “Gentlemen, pray the Emperor protects us, for we are damned.”
A colonel of the Japanese Army stands apart from the others and quietly downs his saki in one quick swallow. While the other military men remain gleeful--despite the Professor’s dampening words--this colonel is somber. As his cold eyes stare at the far-off mushroom cloud, he mutters to himself, in perfect English: “You are wrong, Professor. It is the American cowards who are damned.”
The White House, Washington, D.C.
Harry Truman slumps in his chair, trying to accept what his Army Chief of Staff has just told him. “So, General Marshall,” Truman says, “you’re telling me the test was a complete failure?”
“Yes, Mister President,” George Marshall replies. “The weapon did not detonate.”
Truman sighs, stands and walks to the Oval Office window, seeing his own look of distress reflected in the glass. “First that goddamn fire ruins all the uranium…and now this plutonium bomb doesn’t work. Isn’t that just peachy, General?”
“We all hoped for a better result, Mister President.”
Secretary of War Henry Stimson sits across the room. Seventy years old and in failing health, Stimson had been a major proponent of nuclear weaponry in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration--and now in Truman’s. But Stimson had let George Marshall do all the talking this time. Henry “Hap” Arnold, Commanding General, US Army Air Forces, also sits in uneasy silence. Arnold’s boys will be the ones delivering the atomic bomb--if there ever is an atomic bomb.
There are two navy men in the room: Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations, and Admiral William Leahy, Chief of Staff to the President. They listen in guarded silence; both know better than to speak at a time like this.
The newly appointed Secretary of State, James Byrnes, is seated by Trum
an’s desk. A confidant of the new president, it is his style to pepper bearers of bad news with accusations thinly disguised as questions. But as he turns to begin a verbal assault on Marshall, Truman cuts him off. “Hold on a second, Jimmy.”
Then the President turns back to Marshall. “Where does that leave us, George?”
Immediately, Truman wished he could reel his use of the familiar name back in. He knows full well Marshall can only function in an atmosphere of professional formality. He vividly recalled the time FDR had casually called Marshall “George” in conversation and Marshall’s firm but polite demand that such informality cease. Marshall had taken Truman’s slight stoically, but it was a slight nonetheless. Even a brand-new president has to cater to the temperaments of subordinates.
“Excuse me,” Truman says. “I mean General Marshall.”
Marshall looks relieved. Protocol has been restored. “Thank you, Mister President. General Groves informs me his people have isolated the problem. The casing for the high-explosive triggering device is rupturing before the atomic reaction can be achieved. He still believes that with a modification to this casing we’ll have a serviceable weapon.”
Truman scowls. He is not interested in technical details. “And how long do they expect this to take?”
“He believes they can be ready to test again in two months.”
“Shit,” the President says. “But if the next test is successful, we would still have a weapon ready for use in the western Pacific by October?” He pauses, then adds: “Of this year?”
“Yes, Mister President.”
Truman is silent for a few moments. Admiral Leahy seizes the opportunity to speak. “Mister President, if the wide-scale firebombing of Japan hasn’t brought them to the point of surrender, why do we continue to hope this one atom bomb will? General LeMay’s tactics have already wiped out entire cities, have they not?”
Truman, pretending to be deep in thought, tries to ignore Leahy’s question--and the painful truth at its core.
Now Admiral King speaks up. “The only thing that will bring them to their knees is to continue the naval blockade. They’ll starve. They’ll have to surrender.”
“Bullshit. That could take years, Admiral. We don’t have that kind of time,” Secretary of State Byrnes says.
“Amen to that, Jimmy,” the President adds.
King is not finished. “So we are to blunder ahead with this invasion, Mister President…and get another million or so American boys killed?”
Truman’s face reddens. King is a master at rubbing him the wrong way. Marshall reads the meaning in the malignant glance the President sends his way: Put this arrogant asshole in his place.
“That’s a wild assumption, Admiral,” George Marshall says. “You’ve seen the studies. We all have. The scale of casualties for the invasion is expected to be no different than at Normandy, Iwo Jima or Okinawa.”
King smirks. “You’re willing to bet on that, General?”
“Yes sir, I am.”
“I am, too,” Truman says, but his tone convinces no one. Not even himself. Then, shifting to a confident voice that belies the uncertainties of his first three months as president, he says, “OK. You have my full approval to continue the testing on the atom bomb. Let’s get this damn war over with by 1946…one way or the other.”
George Marshall saluted and left the Oval Office, very glad the ordeal was over. In a way, he was also glad the atom bomb test had failed. Like most of the scientists and generals, he feared the rush to use the nuclear weapon and the massive power shift it could bring to warfare and world politics. Once that cat is out of the bag, where will we all end up? Even some pipsqueak nation with an atom bomb can turn the balance of power inside out. At least now, they could put off dealing with it for a few more months. Maybe, by some miracle, the war would be over by then--and cooler heads might prevail.
Neither George Marshall nor anyone else in the US command knew that the Japanese had successfully developed a similar weapon--but it did not share the Americans’ problems. Japan’s bomb was not designed to be delivered by an aircraft. Size and weight were not obstacles.
Chapter Two
It is a traffic jam in the sky. The air above Kadena Field on the island of Okinawa is thick with US aircraft being brought into a ragged landing pattern by overworked air traffic controllers. A building thunderstorm approaches from the west. Lightning illuminates its darkened, towering clouds from within, like flickering Chinese lanterns. The controllers are running out of time to get everyone on the ground before the storm hits.
In the holding pattern, Captain John Worth smoothly pilots his F-5--a twin-engined photo reconnaissance airplane based on the P-38 “Lightning” fighter--into line for landing behind a string of bombers and transports. The three-hour ferry flight from the Philippines has been routine and dull--until now, with that storm rolling in quickly. He will be glad to be on the ground and out of this cramped cockpit, which is becoming a steam room in the warm, tropical air of low altitude.
The bloody, three-month-long conquest by US forces of the Japanese on Okinawa is finally over. The island is now being turned into a major staging area for Operation Olympic: the invasion of the southernmost Japanese home island of Kyushu, only 350 miles to the north.
Kadena and the other airfields on Okinawa had been major Japanese airbases. Now they will be home to over 2000 US aircraft. These planes, along with those still based in the Philippines, the long-range B-29 bombers in the Marianas, and naval aircraft from the carriers of Admiral Nimitz, represent the collective might of US airpower in the Pacific.
John Worth’s plane has no guns but an array of five sophisticated cameras in its nose. Although looking almost identical to a fighter aircraft, it is not a fighter at all--and John Worth is not a fighter pilot. He flies a machine that takes pictures. Swaggering fighter pilots--who gladly supported the notion that they were the elite of aviators, strutting around with all the confidence and assertiveness of brothers in the most prestigious fraternity--call recon pilots “kodak” or “camera boy” with derisive delight. The fighter jocks have unflattering names for everyone else, too: bomber pilots are called “dump truck drivers”; transport pilots are “garbage men.”
The cameras of a photo recon plane are a strategic weapon more valuable than any fighter pilot, though. Photo recon aircraft provide the generals with pictures of enemy troop dispositions, topography, shipping, bomb damage assessments, even weather patterns--the intelligence needed to make sound military decisions. Getting the pictures while surviving enemy fire requires the unarmed recon pilot to possess high degrees of skill and courage. Sure, they would love to have guns. But their planes just cannot fit all the equipment necessary to perform multiple missions and have enough performance left to not be sitting ducks. As John Worth’s first commanding officer had told him, “Fighter pilots are expendable. Photo recon is indispensable.” Despite those wise words, John still feels like the second string football player he had been in college not so long ago.
John turns his airplane, named f-stop, to a short final approach. He watches as, a mile ahead, a transport touches down hard on her left gear, then bounces to her right gear and slews sharply off the right side of the runway. She comes to rest abruptly in the high weeds with her nose spun around to face the just-departed runway. A knowing smile crosses John’s face. “Well, ol’ girl, we’ve got a bit of a crosswind right to left,” he says aloud as he pats her throttles. It would be nice if they mentioned that, he thinks. But he imagines the air traffic controllers are having as much trouble as the pilots seeing the primitive wind sock in the center of the field. Oh, well! No different from New Guinea or the Philippines, I guess…Maybe I really am nuts for still being here.
The controller’s voice barks in John’s earphones: “Focus 4-7 from Kadena tower… You want to go around? That guy’s sitting right on the edge, ain’t he?”
“No thanks, tower,” John replies. “I don’t have the gas for that. There’s
plenty of room.”
Crosswind landings are always tricky. A one-wheeled landing with the F-5 could blow a tire and cause her landing gear to collapse. John coaxes f-stop to the ground, working hard to keep her wings level. Despite the effort, he is calm; he is no amateur at this high-stakes game. The touchdown is close to flawless, something the embarrassed transport pilot, from his unfortunate ringside seat, cannot help but notice as f-stop rolls past his mired aircraft.
John speaks softly to his airplane as she decelerates: “Whoa, girl, whoa…Nice job, baby…Smoother than a G.I. haircut.”
John Worth is only 23 years old. He has been at war for three years, with 3000 hours of flying and hundreds of combat recon missions to his credit.
He has never lost an airplane.
He could have gone home a long time ago.
Chapter Three
August 1945
Imperial Palace, Tokyo
“This is insanity!” Those were the words Prime Minister Suzuki spoke when told of the Japanese Navy’s plan to utilize the nuclear weapon. Suzuki had mighty hopes that this meeting of the War Council would consider ways to negotiate an end to the war. But negotiation seemed to be the furthest thing from the Navy’s mind.
Admiral Toyoda, the Navy Chief of Staff, ignores the Prime Minister’s obvious distress and gets down to details. “We will mount the weapon on an I-15 Class submarine and detonate it in the harbor of San Francisco.”
General Umezu, the Army Chief of Staff, sits quietly, observing the proceedings. Foreign Minister Togo, also silent, anxiously paces the floor.
Highly agitated, Suzuki says: “You cannot be serious, Admiral. The Navy’s poorly executed attack on Pearl Harbor had ultimately served only to rouse a sleeping giant. Now this giant and his insidious Russian ally are poised to destroy us as a people and you wish to antagonize him once again?”
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