Truman has had enough of this. “Gentlemen,” he says, “we will put this destructive rivalry behind us for a moment and analyze this issue with all the wisdom, judgment, and leadership we possess. I need the good counsel of all of you. We’re going to work through this. Do our nuclear experts believe it possible the Jap scientists could have this capability?”
“Yes, Mister President,” Marshall says, “provided they received sufficient nuclear material from Germany.”
A pensive Truman weighed the positions of his Army and Navy. The Navy leaders felt that even the possibility of a Japanese atom bomb was a show-stopper for the invasion. Their preferred course of action remained blockade, which they hoped to intensify with operations against the occupied Chinese mainland, securing access to the Sea of Japan. This would completely encircle the island nation with US naval might.
The Army, in the absence of more concrete proof and skeptical of atomic weaponry in the first place, saw no need to delay the invasion.
Leahy offers one further opinion: “The Japanese might not even want to use their bomb on their own soil.”
Byrnes rebuts loudly. “Of course they would! Who wouldn’t?”
General Arnold, ever the air power advocate, proposes a unique alternative. “Suppose we drop our bomb on their bomb?” he asks.
“You mean the bomb that doesn’t work?” Byrnes says, his mocking tone unmistakable.
No one else in the room had a response to Arnold’s suggestion. Nobody understood the science well enough to speculate on the possible outcomes. Besides, Byrnes was right: the American bomb did not work. At least not yet.
Truman thought his head might actually explode at any moment. The thought of Japan having such a weapon, regardless of how credible the information or how unlikely the science, brought him to the brink of physical illness. He mustered all his politician’s skills to control the waves of impending nausea.
“Interesting idea, General Arnold,” the President says. “See what General Groves has to say about that. But it seems to me we’d have to know where the Jap bomb was to attack it with any kind of weapon. Do our experts say we could destroy it with conventional weapons without causing a nuclear explosion?”
Marshall, King, and Arnold nod in affirmation, unified at last.
“And do we know where the supposed Jap bomb is?” the President asks.
The three Chiefs of Staff shake their heads, still unified but now in the negative.
“What are we doing about that?” Truman asks.
“A crack aerial recon unit has been dedicated to the search, Mister President,” Arnold replies.
Truman speaks softly but resolutely as he turns away, deep in thought. “Better be the best damn bunch of flyboys we’ve got.”
The room has gotten deathly quiet. After a moment, Truman asks: “If they used it against our invasion forces, could the invasion still prevail?”
Marshall replies, “Despite potentially enormous casualties to part of our force, if we were able to employ our reserves immediately, then yes, Mister President, we believe we could still prevail… provided the Japanese possess only one such weapon.”
Leahy lets out a long, pained sigh. King whistles softly, a sound like a bomb falling.
Byrnes is coiled, ready to strike as necessary.
Truman looks perturbed, perhaps betrayed, as he says, “So you’ve given this some thought, I see…”
The President’s decision came down to a question of personalities. He had always considered Marshall the textbook definition of the rational man. King had always struck him as a partisan hot-head, and Leahy, while a gifted organizer and mediator, had become too moralistic and academic to be an effective war leader. Arnold was a brilliant advocate for the development of air power but little more. Most of all, Truman distrusted alarmists.
“Continue the invasion preparations, gentlemen. We go as planned,” the President says.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A late afternoon thunderstorm had caught just about everybody at Kadena by surprise. John, strolling back to his tent after walking Marge to her shift at the hospital, got drenched. So did Nancy Bergstrom, who had been sitting outside the hospital, taking a break while she smoked a cigarette. Marge was busy changing dressings on several injured patients, working with Second Lieutenant Maria Carbone, a new nurse from the Bronx, New York. Maria, barely 20 years old, a friendly girl with a chubby face, was a replacement. She had only been on Okinawa a week, fresh out of nursing school. This was her first duty assignment. Marge and Nancy were showing her the ropes.
“Does it always rain like this?” Maria asks, surprised how quickly the sudden rain turned everything outside the hospital tents into a quagmire.
“I’m afraid so,” Marge says without breaking the rhythm of her work. “You got to keep your feet dry. Get used to cleaning your boots daily, and keep plenty of dry socks handy.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Hey, Marge, Nancy tells me you’re dating a pilot?”
“Dating…that word seems so out of place over here,” Marge says, stopping to reflect for a second. “But, yeah, I’m seeing a pilot.”
“Wow! I’m really surprised at all the boy-girl stuff going on here,” Maria says, wide-eyed. “They told us in training that a field hospital would be like a convent, with your head nurse the Mother Superior and armed guards escorting you everywhere.”
Marge looks around, then pulls Maria to a corner of the tent so as not to be overheard. “Well, it used to be like that when we were close to the fighting, but it’s different now on this island, on a big base like this… and let’s just say Mother Superior has got a little something of her own going on… and it ain’t with a guy. So it’s live and let live.”
It takes a moment for Marge’s last remark to sink into Maria’s innocent mind. When it finally strikes home, Maria’s face becomes a portrait in dismay. She whispers: “Oh, my! With another nurse? Here?”
“No, not at this hospital. But close…”
“Oh, thank God! That would be so awkward!”
“Gee, no kidding, Maria!”
Marge chuckles to herself, trying to remember if she had ever been this naïve.
The two nurses go back to tending their patients. After a few minutes, Maria’s shock passes and she resumes pumping Marge about her boyfriend. “A pilot! That must be so exciting!”
Marge puts down everything and turns to Maria, giving her the knowing, weary look that comes from hard-won experience. “No, Maria,” Marge says, “it’s awful…terrifying. I guess if I was his girl back at home I’d only know what he told me in letters, but being here, I see it all, every damn day, with my own eyes. But I love him… he’s everything I want in a guy, so I live with it.”
Maria decides: I should maybe shut up for a while.
Outside the hospital, US military personnel and Okinawan civilians went about their business. It had proved impossible to keep civilians out of sprawling complexes like Kadena, and many were employed for laundry, kitchen police, and general labor. MPs kept a close eye on them; there had been reports of saboteurs and assassins infiltrating US installations.
Yoshio Iwazumi was such an assassin. He had smuggled a disassembled rifle onto Kadena, well hidden in the large basket of laundry he carried. He roamed the area looking for a high-ranking officer to kill. The MPs who were supposed to inspect objects like the laundry basket had given it only a cursory look and let Iwazumi pass.
Yoshio Iwazumi was 42 years old and had not been pressed into military service. He had lived on Okinawa his entire life, never leaving the island once, but he was a loyal subject of the Emperor. He was not a Kamikaze but would die if necessary to defend the Mikado; his wife was already dead, killed by an American bomb two months ago. His two sons served in the Imperial Japanese Navy. He feared, but did not know, that they were both dead, as well, killed as the Americans recaptured the Philippines.
The rain had stopped. Iwazumi struggled through the mud and muck, balancing the heavy
basket on his shoulder. It was getting dark; he selected his target by the dim electric lighting that surrounded the hospital tents. He was not completely sure, as US insignia of rank were strange to him, but he believed he had found two army colonels leaning on a jeep, talking, probably hoping to consort with some nurses. How magnificent it would be if he could shoot them both!
He got close enough to have a good chance of success yet give himself an opportunity to escape into the faceless throng. Dropping the basket to the ground, it tipped over and dumped some of its content of hospital bedding into the mud, but that gave him the opportunity to prepare his weapon, all the while looking like he was cleaning up the mess he had just made.
In a few moments, he had the weapon assembled. He stood and turned toward the colonels and quickly pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He pulled it again. Still nothing. He cycled the rifle’s bolt and pulled the trigger again. This time, a shot rang out. It struck the front tire of the jeep and nothing else. All this had taken less than five seconds.
In the instant that followed, no fewer than six bullets from the weapons of several MPs slammed into Iwazumi’s body, killing him outright. Three had come from the submachine gun of an MP about 20 feet away, but this MP had fired an eight-round burst. Of the remaining five rounds, two sailed harmlessly through the roof of a hospital tent and two buried themselves into the mud of the roadway.
The last bullet struck Maria Carbone, who was standing a foot away from Marjorie Braden, squarely in the forehead, exiting the back of her skull along with a large part of her brain.
Marjorie Braden was an experienced combat nurse. She dropped to the floor and cradled Maria’s mortally wounded head; she knew immediately there was nothing that could be done for her. Marge began to wipe the blood and brain tissue off her own face. When she was done, she moved quickly about the tent to check on everyone else; no other person had been hit.
Nancy had rushed in from outside when she heard the shots. She stood over Maria’s dead body, saying nothing. She, too, knew there was no point. In a moment, Marge and Major McNeilly were at her side. McNeilly directed the dumbstruck medics as they placed Maria in a shroud and processed her body to Graves Registration. Then the three nurses joined the others in their section in a group embrace and sobbed uncontrollably for several minutes, after which they regained their composure and quietly returned to their duties.
Word traveled quickly across Kadena Airfield. John was awakened by the duty officer, who told him a nurse had been killed, but he didn’t know who. John then sprinted the half mile to the hospital and upon finding Marge he was so overwrought he could not speak. He tried, but nothing came out.
Marge held his face in her hands and whispered, “I’m OK, baby. Go back to sleep.”
Still no words would come from John’s mouth, no matter how he tried.
Marge’s soft voice spoke again. “I love you, John. Go back to sleep!”
John returned to his tent but slumber eluded him. His voice had returned on the walk back. When he joined Marge for breakfast at 0400, all she said was, “She was standing right next to me.” Marge ate nothing.
They never again spoke of the night Maria Carbone died.
Each MP involved in the incident convinced himself someone else fired the shot that killed her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Robert Oppenheimer looked up from his desk and rubbed his tired eyes, hoping they would focus better on the diagrams his team of scientists was trying to show him.
“We think we’ve got it, Dr. Oppenheimer. Do you agree?”
A metallurgist from the University of Chicago was doing the talking. They knew the steel casing of their bomb had been failing at the titanium reinforcement bands, allowing the pressure of the high-explosive charge to vent before critical mass of the nuclear material could be reached. The bands had been an attempt to allow light, yet strong, construction of the casing. However, since they were more rigid than the case itself, the bands had actually concentrated the stresses on the case at their edges, resulting in cracks and failure.
After weeks of calculations, experimentation with models, and precision machine work, Oppenheimer’s scientists found the bands could be made slightly wider but gradually tapered from their edges to the center of their width, allowing the bands to “give” slightly. This would attenuate the buildup of stress at their edges as it dissipated across the entire band. Their new design added negligible weight to the bomb.
All the recent tests on models had been successful. Machining of a new case, with the tapered reinforcing bands, was in progress. A redesigned bomb would be ready to test in two weeks.
Oppenheimer nods in approval to his assembled team; he likes the look of this fix. Dialing his desk phone, he says, “Good. I’ll notify General Groves.”
Chapter Thirty
October 1945
Not much happening here; it’s become a waiting game where little seems to change anymore…
These were the opening words of a letter Marge was writing to her parents. She did not think the censors would blot out anything she had written so far. Putting down the pen, she looked over at John as he rummaged around in his tent, dressing for today’s mission.
“Baby, please don’t fly today. Stay here with me.”
“Marge, I have to…”
“You don’t have to. Even your C.O. says you can take some time off. You’ve gone up every day this week except that day with the big storm… even the day after that, with the high winds and planes cracking up all over the place, you still went up.”
“Haven’t we had this discussion before? Besides, my squadron did OK.”
“John! You were the only one in your squadron who flew that day!”
John was secretly satisfied with that fact. His C.O., Colonel Harris, had tried to fly that day, too--for the first time in weeks--but aborted takeoff with propeller problems. Jaworski later told John there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with Harris’ airplane, but the mechanics had cleaned and reseated the connectors on the prop governors so the colonel could save face.
John puts his arms around Marge and says, “Honey, you’re tired. Go to bed. I’ll be back when you wake up.”
Marge sighs in frustration. “Farm Boy, how many times have I heard that? Then I wake up, you’re not back, and I end up wondering if you’re swimming or dead somewhere…or maybe a guest of the Japanese.”
He didn’t answer, like he did not hear what she just said. She was resigning herself to the inevitable once again: John would fly.
“Do you know where you’re going today?” she asks.
As he pulls on his heavy flying boots, John says, “Yeah….It looks like I’ve got the railroads on the western side of Kyushu. Other guys will be doing the eastern railroads and the ports.”
“You’re not looking for airfields anymore?”
“Well, we did find a bunch of them in the last few weeks. Tactical Air has hit them all. We’ll go back to them real soon, no doubt. I know I’ve said this before, but I’m amazed how little seems to be happening on Kyushu. You’d think we’d see heavy equipment for building fortifications, obvious troop movements, gun emplacements, especially in caves behind the beaches, but no… almost nothing! We just keep finding and destroying Kamikaze planes on the ground. At this rate, this invasion looks easier than Okinawa.”
“John…they’re gonna surrender…they’re finished…there’ll never be an invasion. Then we can all go home.”
“Ah, my beautiful optimist! I wish I could agree, baby, but I think we’ll invade, they’ll fight like crazy like they always do, and we’ll outgun and overpower them just like every campaign before, but they won’t surrender until we walk into Tokyo and make them. Lots of casualties on both sides, though.”
He is eager to change the topic. “Hey! Are we going home to Iowa or Chicago?” he asks. “I can finish my degree either place.”
“It doesn’t matter to me, honey,” Marge replies. “After this, any place will be just f
ine, just so we’re together. And I can work in a hospital anywhere. But really, John, everybody’s saying they’re going to surrender. They can’t even control the sky over their own country. You’re living proof of that… and may I emphasize living, please? You’re not going to do low-level today, are you?”
“No. High altitude…That surrender talk is just wishful thinking, Marge.” He turns back to his flight preparations, too preoccupied to debate her further.
“We’ll see, Farm Boy. You know, I hate that low-level stuff… scares me more than just about anything you do… I see how warm you’re dressing, so I figured you’d be up high,” Marge says, quite knowledgeable now of the pilot’s realm.
“If there’s one thing I wish I could change about an F-5, I would make the cockpit warmer at altitude. No wonder the guys in Europe disliked them,” he offered.
“You’re going to stay here, I guess?”
“Uh-huh,” Marge says, yawning. “It really was swell of those tentmates of yours to move out. I’m getting to like this little home away from home, especially since McNeilly gave up on doing bed-checks.”
John picks up his weary lover and places her in the hammock. “Do you want your writing paper?” he asks.
“No, I’ll finish it later.”
He leans over the hammock and kisses her.
Drawing the curtain, John says, “I’ll be back soon.”
“You’d better, Farm Boy.”
“Count on it, baby.”
f-stop leaves the ground at sunrise. Turning north, the weather looks good, at least for the first part of the flight. Clouds are building far in the distance, but for now it is just several patchy decks, thousands of feet apart. John can see a few of his squadron mates several miles ahead and higher, a few more behind him and below. The squadron isn’t much for formation flying; they are too used to working alone. At least they can keep an eye on each other if there is any trouble from mechanical glitches or the Japanese. It gives some small level of comfort to at least know where somebody went down. All too often, the whereabouts of recon pilots--flying alone--remain a mystery once they are knocked from the sky.
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