“This should be our new plan, and Kessen should be laid to rest.”
“Absurd,” came a heated reply. “They will advance toward us; we know they will do that. Why venture far out, thousands of miles forward, in such a risk-laden venture, without nearby bases for support and repair. Let them come to us and walk into our trap.”
“If one sets a trap for a fox, no matter how elaborate, and the fox declines to enter, the trap is a waste, even if built of solid gold,” Genda replied forcefully. “What then? We all agree that if hostilities break out, time will be on the Americans’ side. Suppose they decide to sit back and first build up.”
“They must defend the Philippines; to lose them without a fight is a loss of face the U.S. Navy will never accept.”
“Perhaps, ultimately, their navy will be focused more on victory than what we define as saving face. I therefore still maintain that it is we who should strike first.”
He fell silent, looking about the room hoping that now debate would open up; that perhaps someone would ask for greater elaboration, but there was only silence and, after a moment, muttered comments about other meetings, a clearing of throats, nods of thanks, and the gathering broke apart, heading toward the door.
The room quickly emptied out.
Genda looked over at Fuchida and forced a smile.
“It’s a start,” he said, and Fuchida could only shake his head.
Finally only one other officer remained, and he stood across from them, looking down at the map table, and sighed.
“A good start and most courageous,” Yamamoto said.
“Thank you, sir, I’m sorry it was not more successful.”
“Personally I hope it never comes to it,” Yamamoto continued. “I served in Washington, D.C., as an attaché, traveled extensively around the country, count many in their navy as my friends. For me, war with them would be unthinkable; there are far greater concerns, the Soviets for one.
“Genda, you are on the right track. You know I opposed the building of these new superbattleships. They are a waste of money. The key to the future is airpower, and the key to naval airpower is the carrier. I really came to understand that when I commanded the Akagi back in 1928. Here was Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic nonstop, and our hidebound admirals refusing to believe airplanes would matter.
“Something else for you to ponder. I have always been a gambler. I actually developed a system for roulette that made me a lot of money in Monaco when I was touring Europe. I like the gamble inherent in your plan. It fits life as I understand it. If possible, we should never fight. But if we have to fight, let’s do it boldly and with courage and audacity.
“I’d like to see your written report on this,” the admiral added, “and believe me I will not file it as many will do. Good day.”
There was a polite exchange of bows, and the admiral left.
Fuchida watched Yamamoto depart with open admiration and turned to Genda, “Now there is a leader I would follow into battle against anyone.”
“Perhaps someday we will,” Genda said quietly.
The Yangtze River above Shanghai: 12 December 1937 3:45 p.m. Local Time
He didn’t need binoculars to see them, and he felt a tightening in his gut. They were coming straight for him.
Though he was technically superior in rank to the captain of the river patrol boat Panay, it was not his place to give orders. The navy had placed him in Shanghai to head up the Small Signals Division there that was monitoring Japanese naval transmissions and, with his knowledge of the language, to act, if need be, as interpreter for the American Consulate Office to which he was officially attached. He had briefly stayed on with the Consulate Office when it was in Nanking, but the navy had ordered him to report back to Shanghai... he was supposed to be going home, back to Pearl, back to retire, his last physical finally catching up with the arthritis he had tried to conceal. With the utter chaos of the Japanese invasion of coastal China now in full swing he felt it best to get aboard a ship of the United States for the trip back, and the gunboat Panay had now been his home for several days as it shepherded several small oil tankers and stayed just outside of Nanking to pick up the last Americans who wanted to get out.
It had been a good posting, but when the war between Japan and China started up in Peking in July and rapidly swept this way, he felt it best to send Margaret back to their home in Hawaii. Anti-Japanese sentiment was high, and though she was but half-Japanese, he didn’t want to take any chances either with the Chinese, or, for that matter, the Japanese themselves.
He regretted not staying on in the city longer. His old friend Cecil was there, now working as a correspondent, and they had managed to share a couple of meals and drinks together, both not believing, as of yet, the horror stories that moved along the front lines as the Japanese overran the Nationalist army.
Though he was loath to admit it publicly, he was so fed up with the corruption of Chiang and the Nationalists and their inability to effectively cope with the Communist threat, that secretly there was part of him that kind of hoped the Japanese would just pull it off and be done with it. If they fought it the way they had the war with Russia in 1904, honorably and with boldness, and then brought stability and peace to the region, in the long run it might be for the best after all.
Word, however, of their brutalities had run before them, and it was shattering to hear, in fact he did not want to believe it, for in so many ways he felt they were his people too. His lost son, part-Japanese, the woman he loved, part-Japanese, the language now as familiar to him as his own native tongue.
He did not want to believe it, but as he studied the approaching planes, several fighters, his gut instinct was a grave warning.
The “captain” of the gunboat, actually a fairly young lieutenant, had his binoculars raised, saying nothing, and when finally James cleared his throat, the lieutenant lowered the glasses to look at him.
“I don’t mean to interfere, sir, but it might be trouble,” James said softly.
He was breaking naval protocol. An officer in transit, even if he was an admiral, still deferred to the commander of the ship he was aboard, though once off that ship, he could tear him up one side and down the other. It was a delicate situation.
“They wouldn’t dare,” the lieutenant responded loudly and brashly, then raised his glasses back up.
But they did dare....
The first of the fighters rolled over into a shallow Split S, while still a mile out over the river, then pulled out, dropping in low over the water. No sound yet: It looked to James like one of their new Type 96 fighters, sleek, a match for anything in the air, a glint of sunlight off the propeller; it was coming in fast, nearly four miles a minute, and then he saw it. .. like Christmas tree lights winking on either wing.
A split second later, water foamed on the river surface, geysers from the 7.7-millimeter rounds fountaining a dozen feet into the air.
“Jesus Christ, they’re shooting at us!” someone screamed.
James caught a glimpse of some of the civilian refugees on the deck, who had been casually strolling about watching the approach of the fighter plane with interest, begin to scatter.
The fountains of water “walked” right into the Panay and suddenly there was the sound, the machine-gun firing, the roar of the plane’s engine, the sound of bullets smacking into steel, ricocheting off, huge flecks of paint flying up, pockmarking the hull, and then the main deck cabin, windowpanes shattering.
The plane bore in, then roared overhead, the red rising sun painted beneath each wing.
The lieutenant stood, gape mouthed, unable to respond for a moment. “They’re shooting at us ...,” he gasped finally, unbelievingly.
James felt, for a brief instant, a strange, almost surreal detachment from it all. Part of his mind refused to believe that this was happening at all, that the Japanese would dare actually attack an American ship. He spared a glance aft. The American flag was standing out in the noonday breeze ... there w
as another flag painted atop the main deck cabin to clearly identify the ship from the air. No, it couldn’t be ... and yet even as his mind rebelled, he saw the second plane leveling off just above the water, boring in, again the fountainlike geysers kicking up, this time coming straight at him.
And the strangest of thoughts then struck him. I’ve been in the Navy for over twenty-three years and this is the first time, the first time I’m actually being shot at. They are trying to kill me!
There was no melodramatic instant of life flashing before his eyes, thoughts of Margaret, or even of his lost son, just that each geyser erupting was stepping closer, marking the converging fire of 7.7-millimeter machine guns coming right at him.
Someone knocked him hard, sending him sprawling, knocking the wind out of him. It was the lieutenant, finally reacting. The bullets stitched up the hull, tearing up deck planking on the diminutive bridge, shattering more glass, sparks flying. The plane roared over, followed by another right behind it, strafing the bow. He caught a glimpse of a sailor doubling over, collapsing. Screaming now, civilians scattering in panic around the deck, sailors, some moving to their general quarters position, though it had not yet been sounded, others just standing like statues, as unbelieving as James had been.
The three planes soared upward, gaining altitude, and for a moment he thought that somehow, just somehow it was a mistake, that they would climb out, realize their error, and leave. But no, the lead plane did a wingover, now coming down steeply from several thousand feet, guns again firing.
“General quarters!” He heard the order picked up, shouted, men running.
How many drills had he been through aboard ships such as the Maryland, the Lexington, the Oklahoma, where it was all done so smoothly in such orderly, almost stately fashion ... but they had never been under fire, so caught by surprise ... by terror.
The lieutenant was back up on his feet, someone tossing him a helmet, as if it would actually do any good.
“Sir, could you get those civilians under control... get them below decks!”
James came to his feet, not sure where to start; it was not as if he could pass a simple order and they would all just follow along.
The lead plane was firing again, shot plunging down, several more dropping, including one of the civilians, which set off hysterical screaming, the plane roaring out low over the water and then immediately beginning to climb back up.
“Below, damn it, below!” James shouted. Grabbing the nearest civilian, he vaguely recognized him as a secretary from the embassy; he shoved the man toward the open doorway of the main deck cabin.
There was a moment’s hesitation, but then the second plane came in for its strafing run, and as one man went below the others raced to the doorway, shoving to get under what James knew was nothing more than the false protection of the overhead deck. The Panay was no battleship; it was a river gunboat.
“Below decks! Below decks!” He stood by the doorway as the last of them piled in, a couple of sailors carrying a man wearing a clerical collar, a missionary knocked unconscious, bleeding profusely from a head wound.
He heard a crack of a rifle, a lone sailor standing on the deck, armed with a Springfield ‘03, swearing, firing as the first plane continued to climb away.
“Bombs!”
He looked up and saw yet another plane, not one of the fighters, now coming down on them, pulling out of its dive, two dots detaching.
He needed no urging. This time he flung himself flat on the deck, only to be met by the hard steel as it was flung upward by the two bombs bracketing the gunboat.
The three fighters wheeled, coming back in for yet another strafing run. Stunned by the blast, soaked by the cascades of water coming down, he suddenly no longer cared, standing back up, filled with rage.
Atop the main cabin he heard someone swearing and, looking up, saw a sailor actually holding an American flag up, waving it, as if the bastards would somehow now see it at last. He started to shout for the man to get the hell down, but his cry was drowned out by the roar of the planes, the staccato snap of bullets, the sailor diving down for cover, flag falling from his hands.
“Abandon ship!”
Startled, he looked back to the young commander of the Panay, hands cupped, shouting the order; but already men were going over the sides. Actually there was no need to do so; the bracketing of the bombs had staved in the fragile hull, and the Panay was already settling to the bottom of the muddy river, water beginning to cascade over the railing. All he had to do was just simply step over and into the Yangtze. The water was cold, damn cold, startling him. A sailor tossed a life jacket to him, which he simply grabbed hold of, to keep afloat, kicking the few yards to the weed-choked river-bank.
Another of the fighters wheeled in like a vulture over a dying beast and rolled in for a strafing dive. James pushed the civilian by his side down into the weeds, diving to get under the muddy water. An instant later it felt like he had been kicked by a horse, shoving him down into the mud, no pain, just numbness. He convulsively gasped, the filthy water of the Yangtze flooding into his lungs.
In four feet of muddy water, he began to drown. He felt hands around him, pulling him up, rolling him over. Panicked, he kicked, struggled, the pain suddenly hitting, agonizing. He vomited, aspirating more water and filth as he did so, choking. He heard voices, someone shouting, still struggling he felt land under him, mud stinking of human waste.
Somebody rolled him on his side, slapping him on the back. Gasping, he was finally able to draw a breath.
“Down!”
More gunfire, a plane racing over low, a split second of shadow passing like an angel or demon of death, the roar of the engine, someone swearing.
“That’s it, sir, take a breath, that’s it!”
The voice was almost gentle. He had lost his glasses, the world looked fuzzy, but he saw the stripes of a chief petty officer who was kneeling over him.
“Let me get your tie off, sir,” and the officer snaked it loose, popping a few buttons off his uniform, taking the tie.
“This might hurt now, sir, hang on.” And damn it did hurt. As the sailor raised James’s left arm, it felt like someone had driven an ice pick up it. Blood was pouring out of his hand. He tried to move it, winced, the last two digits dangling loosely. The sailor wrapped the tie around the hand, tight it felt, too damn tight; he gasped slightly, but said nothing.
“That’ll do for the moment, sir.”
It was still hard to breathe. “Thanks,” was all he could gasp out.
“I’m going back in now, sir, there’re still people out there. Stay low.”
James could only nod, suddenly feeling small, helpless. As with anyone with astigmatism, the loss of glasses made him feel naked, vulnerable. My other glasses, in my luggage. He looked up, absurd. Panay was settled to the gunwales, smoke pouring out of her.
“I can’t believe it,” the petty officer gasped, “the bastards. I can’t believe it.” One of the fighters banked over low, circling, and he could catch a glimpse of the pilot in the open cockpit looking down.
The petty officer stood up, raised his arm in the classic gesture of insult, finger extended, shouting obscenities.
James said nothing, looking up, at the circling plane, the face of the enemy above him.
We’re at war now, he thought. America would never accept this, could never accept this. They had fired on the flag, on a ship of the United States Navy. It could only mean one response now--war.
The White House Washington, D.C.: 14 December 1937
“Sir, I know you are furious about this Japanese attack on the Panay, but there is just nothing practical we can do about it,” Secretary of State Hull wearily asserted to an angry President Roosevelt.
“Cordell, this is my navy, and they have sunk one of my gunboats. We have to do something.”
“Mr. President, Gallup reports 70 percent of the American people want us to withdraw from China, not just the military, but everyone, every civi
lian, every missionary, the logic being if none of us are there, no one can get shot at and thus we avoid a war.”
Disgusted with this bit of intelligence and the logic it implied, the president could only wearily shake his head.
“Congress is even more isolationist than the American people. There would be no congressional support for a real confrontation with Japan. The American people oppose the Japanese aggression and sympathize with the Chinese, but they simply do not want to get involved.”
“You may be right for now, but I have a feeling time is going to teach all of us some very painful lessons about aggressive dictatorships in both Tokyo and Berlin. For the moment, you are right. You and Joe Grew work up some strong statement, and raise as much Cain with the Japanese as you can without getting us into a shooting match.”
As Hull turned to leave, FDR couldn’t resist one last parting shot. “Just remember that I am going to watch them constantly and take advantage of every mistake they make to teach the American people that we have to stop the dictatorships before they threaten us directly.”
FOUR
Nanking, China: 15December 1937
Staggering with exhaustion, Cecil Stanford, correspondent for the Manchester Daily, pushed through the terrified, jostling mob. Attached to a bamboo pole, held aloft in his right hand, was a makeshift British flag, painted onto a torn bedsheet. In his other arm, nestled in tight against his breast, two small Chinese girls, ages most likely about two, both of them soiled, covered in feces and vomit, both screaming hysterically even as they clung to him. Clutched around him were several score of people, terrified, pressing in tight, all but climbing on top of him, petrified to be at the edge of the group staggering through hell.
The children had been pressed into his arms a couple of blocks back; a woman, horrific looking, blood pouring in rivulets down both her legs, had staggered up to him. The cause of the bleeding was obvious, far too obvious because she was naked. She had pressed the two screaming children into his arms, staggered back away, and collapsed in the gutter.
Pearl Harbour and Days of Infamy Page 9