East Wind Returns

by Grasso, William Peter

  John and Bud hit their mark. As the cab’s ladder sweeps by, they are both able to grab it with one hand while holding their wounded man by his web belt with the other. Bud gets one foot on the ladder, then the other, and climbs the four rungs into the cab, pulling his man up with him. John follows up the ladder with his man.

  The train is now passing at a man’s full-out running speed. The pursuing Japs give up the chase, dropping to one knee to try well-aimed but ineffective shots that bounce off the retreating locomotive.

  As they catch their breath on the cab’s floor, Bud looks to John, holds both hands over his head and says, “Touchdown, sir!”

  Less than 10 minutes later, with the train making excellent speed in reverse, they pass back through the American lines. The Japs had tried to spread the alarm down their forward positions, but the train traveled faster. Once they figure they are out of enemy territory, some soldiers from Bud’s platoon climb on top of the freight cars and wave their arms frantically, hoping to persuade their fellow G.I.’s not to fire on them. Surprisingly, none do.

  A few more minutes and the train coasts to a stop, without benefit of brakes, at its point of origin. The captured hatch is pushed from the locomotive to the ground. Mark Colton begins a manic, triumphant dance on their prize. Only a privileged few know why; the rest think he has flipped out, another case of combat fatigue crazily relishing a piece of junk as a war souvenir. Bud yells for medics to care for his wounded. He also tells his platoon sergeant to arrest and confine the young sergeant who had refused his order, pending court martial. The assembled platoon then marches off, with all except their lieutenant still ignorant of the true nature of their mission and their place in history.

  John vents the remaining pressure from the locomotive’s boiler, then vents himself with a big sigh of relief. Certainly, this mission has been beyond anything his imagination could conjure, but he has prevailed and survived once again. He is filled, just for a few seconds, with the heady satisfaction of having done something truly monumental.

  Mark continues to strut around like he has just conquered the world. John puts his arm around Mark’s shoulder. “Nice job, sailor. By the way, in the Air Force when you puke in somebody’s machine, you have to clean it up!”

  “Nice try, flyboy, but forget it! You ain’t shitting in my mess kit right now! We’re going to be telling our grandkids how we saved the world!”

  “Don’t get too carried away, Mark. We just got lucky. It could have turned into a SNAFU real easy.”

  Mark steps back, dumbfounded. “Are you kidding me? You do realize we just did something absolutely amazing? Totally unprecedented in all of science?

  “Yeah, I realize it,” John replies. “Believe me, I realize it. But this damn war still isn’t over, so we’d better get a move on. I’m sure the general wants his after action-report on the double.”

  John starts to walk off, leaving Mark slack-jawed.

  “Are you coming or what, sailor?”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  On 9 November--X+2--MacArthur reported to Washington that excellent progress was being made on Kyushu: Resistance, while stiff, is being overcome with increasing ease as the full weight of artillery assets are ashore and being brought to bear. Air assets continue to dominate: there is no longer any effective Japanese air resistance over Kyushu. Army Air Force units on Okinawa and the Philippines have begun relocating to the newly captured airfields. Large scale aerial bombardment of Honshu will commence in the next few days.

  As a miscellaneous comment, MacArthur added: No credible evidence of Japanese nuclear capability has been found.

  After receiving General Krueger’s message on the success of Task Force Worth, MacArthur arrived on Kyushu midday, X+3. His disembarkment from the B-17 that transported him to Japanese home soil was repeated numerous times for the cameras.

  The after-action report verbally presented by John Worth, Mark Colton, and Bud Davies described the execution of Task Force Worth in great detail, right down to the steps taken to deactivate the nuclear device. At the end of this presentation, its transcript was immediately classified Top Secret and they were ordered never to divulge the nature of the mission they had just completed to anyone.

  The official version of that report actually entered into the 6th Army annals purged any mention of a nuclear device, merely stating: A joint Army, Air Force, and Navy task force of approximately 50 men sought to exploit certain tactical opportunities behind enemy lines and was successful. The mission incurred four casualties, no fatalities, and employed indigenous rail assets to achieve mobility and surprise.

  The Japanese atomic bomb was never spoken of again.

  Sitting at his desk in the Oval Office, Harry Truman put MacArthur’s report down and relaxed in his chair. Half of his nuclear predicament had been solved.

  At Hungnan Island, Japanese troops destroyed what was left of Professor Inaba’s laboratory, lest it fall into Russian hands.

  At the Imperial Palace, the Emperor’s emissaries puzzled over a communiqué from the Swedish envoy, who appeared to be brokering an American peace proposal.

  John had bunked in Mark Colton’s tent the night of X+2. The following morning, he gathered his things hurriedly to hitch a ride on a C-47 back to his unit on Okinawa. With any luck at all, he’d get to see Marge one more time before the hospital shipped out to Kyushu. As he was saying his goodbyes to Mark, Bud Davies appeared at the entrance to the tent.

  “What’s cookin’, Lieutenant?” John asks, obviously in a rush.

  “I don’t mean to hold you up, sir, but I was curious about something,” Bud begins. “I need your opinion. Doesn’t what we did deserve some kind of decoration? I mean, what does a guy have to do around here to get a medal? Nobody’s said anything about it… just Purple Hearts for the wounded guys. I know we’ve all been ordered to keep our mouths shut, but still…”

  Mark Colton is stunned by Bud’s question. The voice in his scientist’s mind cries out: Who cares about some medal? The triumph of science is its own reward!

  John Worth is more pragmatic. “Bud, the brass aren’t going to want to draw any attention to this atom bomb thing. They ran this whole invasion betting it wasn’t real and can’t have themselves proved wrong now. They’re not likely to put on a big spectacle by making heroes out of any of us. Just be glad I didn’t get us all killed.”

  Crestfallen, Bud says, “That doesn’t sound right, sir.”

  “It’s not right,” John says, “but what’s right and wrong out here depends on who you happen to be. And that buck sergeant you want to send to Leavenworth? Don’t be surprised if that gets back-burnered, too. At most, he’ll get a quick summary court martial, lose a stripe and get his ass shipped far away. The guys in your platoon still don’t have a clue what that thing was, do they?”

  “No, sir.”

  “One way or the other, Bud, I’m afraid that’s the way it’s going to stay.”

  Bud looks like he has been kicked in the gut. “OK, I get it,” he mumbles. Then, in a stronger voice, he adds, “Well, it was a great honor working with both of you gentlemen. I really mean that.”

  Bud salutes. There are handshakes all around.

  As Bud leaves the tent, Mark says, “Damn, John, I didn’t realize just how big a cynic you are.”

  John replies, “A real smart young lady’s been teaching me.”

  Later that same day, X+3, American ground forces advance through the wooded area concealing the beer barrel. A Navy team headed by Mark Colton photographs, diagrams, and dismantles the device, leaving the empty iron shell where they found it. Soon after they are done, Mark is on a plane home with the documents, photos, and enriched uranium they had removed, sealed in a special lead box.

  And on Tinian, in the Marianas, one B-29 is being loaded with one very big bomb.

  Chapter Fifty

  Tinian: one of several small islands in the Northern Marianas stocked to bursting with Boeing B-29’s of the 20th US Army Air Force. T
he Americans who captured this 40 square mile limestone shelf thought its shape resembled Manhattan Island. It did, if you visualize Manhattan with its north-south axis squashed a bit. So they called it Manhattan, even naming the roads they built after its thoroughfares, like Broadway, 42nd Street, and 5th Avenue.

  On this typically warm afternoon, the rain has stopped as if on cue, pushed on its way by a Pacific tradewind. One B-29 slowly moves backward along the puddled ramp, propelled by the tractor attached to her nose landing gear, guided by signalmen on foot at the wingtips and tail. When the silver, four-engined behemoth comes to rest, her two main landing gear straddle a deep pit, with the two gaping bomb bays in her belly directly above it.

  The rear bomb bay is receiving an auxiliary fuel tank, which will help the plane balance the rotund, finned object being placed in the forward bomb bay: Dr. Oppenheimer’s atomic bomb. Work progresses slowly and under a curtain of secrecy; MPs who do not know themselves exactly what is going on keep the unauthorized away. It will take many more hours to complete the loading and safety checks of the 5-ton bomb.

  At Bomber Command headquarters on Tinian, General Carl Spaatz, Commander, US Strategic Air Forces - Pacific, lights a cigarette and paces the floor. By special orders from Washington, “Tooey” Spaatz reports directly to the Joint Chiefs rather than MacArthur or Nimitz. The air forces he commands exist strictly to fulfill Washington’s specific desires in this war unfiltered by the agenda or ego of any field commander. That meant the strategic bombing of cities and industry, including civilians. The need to keep the bombers out of the clutches of the field commanders keeps them based in the Marianas; Japan is just barely within the B-29’s radius of operation from these islands. Now, in late 1945, there are places closer, like northern Luzon and Okinawa, but they are the turf of MacArthur and Nimitz, respectively.

  Although the American atom bomb is being mated to an aircraft at this moment, Spaatz still has not received the written authorization he had demanded to drop the bomb on a Japanese city. “Tooey” is old school air corps, a military aviator since WWI, and, like most American generals, skeptical of the proposed uses and capabilities of atomic weapons. He is also mindful of the moral questions involved in unleashing such new, hypothetically terrible weapons against civilians. But Tooey Spaatz would not hesitate to use them if and when properly ordered. Wise in the ways of high command politics, however, he has no intention of being left holding the bag should the deployment of this bomb be a disastrous failure--or a disastrous success. In demanding the authorization in writing, he is fully prepared to be relieved of command for his stance.

  He suspects the delay in receiving the authorization might be the result of some ethical debate in Washington on whether to drop it at all, now that the invasion is underway and seems to be going according to plan. But he also understands the current military and political mindset: if you have a bigger weapon, you use it. General LeMay, Spaatz’s subordinate and the man leading the bomber command that would carry out this mission, thought his boss was nuts. While chomping on his ever-present cigar, LeMay had fumed in private: “Who the hell cares if the order is in writing or not? Let’s drop the goddamn thing!”

  Pending the expected arrival of the authorization, Spaatz had allowed preparations for the mission to begin. Advised these preparations had been completed at 2200 hours, he checks his chronometer and realizes it is 0700 of this same day in Washington. If he is going to receive his authorization this day, Washington time, it will likely arrive in the middle of the night, Marianas time. He directs the designated flight crews to plan a wake-up at 0300.

  No such ethical debate like the one General Spaatz envisioned was taking place in Washington. It was just a question of waiting a little longer, hoping a message of surrender would be received now that American boots were firmly on Japanese home soil. There had been rumblings in European diplomatic channels of overtures from the Emperor’s envoys, rumblings that contained a hint of “cessation of hostilities.” Not “unconditional surrender,” just “cessation.”

  By 0830, Truman decides he can wait no longer. Prodded by Secretary of State Byrnes, who had wanted to send the authorization days ago, before the bomb had even arrived on Tinian, the President orders Generals Marshall and Arnold to transmit the order to Spaatz immediately. Marshall and Admiral Leahy urge the President to wait just one more day, hoping the European rumors might still possess some merit and solid information had merely been delayed while dispatches sat on some functionary’s desk, awaiting coding or decoding. And, as always, the time differences between Tokyo, Europe, and Washington are driving Truman and his staff to distraction; they feel like their actions are always a day late.

  But it is Byrnes who gains the upper hand. The waiting will cease. The authorization is teletyped to San Francisco, then to Hawaii, and finally to the Marianas, arriving there at 0230 local time. Spaatz, awoken by an aide, receives the news silently, expressing neither elation nor disappointment.

  The three flight crews that comprise the first atomic bomb mission are hand picked; the cream of the crop. Having been roused and fed as planned at 0300, they assemble for briefing just before 0400. They are a bit surprised to see both LeMay and the big boss, Spaatz, in attendance; they know they are being tasked with something truly monumental; this just underlines it. Usually, no one higher than a colonel presides over a briefing.

  Two of the planes will depart first and perform weather reconnaissance of the primary and three alternate target cities. Their crews would determine which cities had the best conditions for visual bombing, the preferred method of delivery over the less-accurate radar. A miss would be a colossal waste of expensive nuclear resources and might not properly demonstrate the effects of the new bomb. The third aircraft, which actually carries the bomb, will depart an hour later and rendezvous with the first two after their recon is complete; its aircraft commander will evaluate the recon information and decide which city they could best strike taking all operational factors into account, including fuel remaining, winds aloft, and any technical problems the aircraft might have developed. After the bomb is dropped, the recon planes will loiter at a safe distance, taking photos and scientific measurements of the detonation and its aftermath.

  The two recon planes take off just before 0500 and head northwest, toward the southern half of the largest Japanese home island, Honshu. Stripped of weaponry but carrying a full fuel load, they are still below maximum takeoff weight, and in the relative coolness of early morning are airborne well before the far threshold of the runway. That runway, despite its 8500 foot length, never seems quite long enough to the B-29 pilots. It ends with an abrupt 10 foot drop to the sea. Overloaded B-29’s often rolled off the end of the runway and dropped down towards the sea before gaining enough airspeed to climb. Sometimes they did not attain the requisite airspeed and splashed into the water.

  The B-29 carrying the atomic bomb, Number 82, is definitely overloaded. Carrying the 5-ton bomb plus full fuel tanks and 600 gallons of ballast fuel puts her several thousand pounds beyond maximum takeoff weight. The pilots are used to this condition, however. Almost all of the nearly 3000 mile round-trip bombing missions to Japan start out this way. With a little luck and a lot of skill, they can get the overloaded monsters into the air. But if you crash on takeoff or have to immediately return for a mechanical problem and botch the overweight landing, the full load of aviation gasoline promises a spectacular inferno, with secondary explosions of the bomb load. There would be little chance of survival.

  This poses an additional problem of cataclysmic proportions for a plane carrying an atomic bomb. A fiery crash of a bomber with its load of conventional high explosives cooking off was disastrous enough; a crash involving an atomic bomb could wipe the airfield and the island it sat on off the map. For this reason, the atomic bomb would only be made capable of detonating once airborne. A nuclear weapons specialist would be part of the flight crew and arm the bomb in flight, crawling into the bomb bay right after takeoff, be
fore the plane was pressurized, to remove its safety devices installed at its manufacture and activate its triggering circuits. The specialist aboard Number 82 is a US Naval officer and physicist from Dr. Oppenheimer’s staff who has accompanied the bomb all the way from the States.

  The pilot of Number 82, a colonel and the group commander, is highly experienced at aerial bombardment. He began this war as a senior B-17 pilot bombing Germany with the 8th Air Force, moving steadily up the chain of command. Transferred to the Pacific theater, he was given command of a B-29 squadron last year in the aircraft’s early operational days, when she was a temperamental lady prone to killing her crews. The 18 cylinder radial engines, each producing 2200 horsepower in its circular maze of cylinders, ducts, and wiring harnesses jammed into a tight cowling, had been prone to overheating and catching fire. The prototype had crashed during initial flight testing with such a problem, killing Boeing’s chief test pilot. Modifications to the cowling’s baffling and cooling flaps have made the B-29 friendlier to her operators and less of a firetrap. She was now free to fulfill her considerable promise.

  Clearance for takeoff is received. The pilot aligns Number 82 to the runway’s centerline in the pre-dawn darkness, manipulating the big red levers that protrude from the center console to steer by differential braking. The engines are run up to takeoff power while the pilot holds her in place with the brakes. With a confirmation from the flight engineer that all systems are in order, he releases the brakes and begins the headlong rush down the runway.

  She gathers speed sluggishly, this overloaded beast, and reaches what would normally be flying speed about three quarters of the way down the runway. The pilot pulls back on the control column and the nose wheels lift off the ground, but after the brief moment that normally passes between the nose rising and the main wheels lifting off, she is not airborne. He puts the nose wheel gently back down on the runway until she can gain more speed. The crew cannot see the edge of land that marks the runway’s end, but they are becoming more apprehensive by the moment of the dark, watery void beyond. Then, suddenly, without seeming to climb at all, the ground is no longer beneath them. The tail gunner, alone in his aft-most compartment, instinctively strains upward against his seat harness as if to keep his backside from skidding on the edge of the island as he feels the sickening drop toward the sea begin.