Pearl Harbour and Days of Infamy

by Newt Gingrich

  “In due time, Winston, in due time, but for the moment I have done all that I can do. Perhaps Herr Hitler will now do us a favor.”

  “I think that guttersnipe will do the job for you,” Winston replied. “He’ll think you’ve taken a knockdown punch and will now want to join in. Just like a jackal after a lion has made a kill. Mark my words.”

  Again a pause

  “We shall see, Winston, let us hope so.”

  “Is there anything at all England can do now to help you?”

  “At this moment, no. The situation is still not clarified in those waters. I’ll be certain you are kept posted as the reports come in.”

  “As I shall with you. I can say that two of my big friends are planning a visit against them.”

  Regardless of how secured the line was, he would not actually say the name of the two ships involved, but knew the man on the other end of the line would know

  “I wish them God speed, and my prayers are with them.”

  “Thank you. And I have a suggestion that might help our planning in this new situation. My schedule over the forthcoming holidays is not yet cast in stone. I think it is time that you and I, and our staffs, meet to plan out a joint response”--he paused for a brief moment--”to all the threats that will have clearly developed by then.”

  “I would be delighted for the visit,” and Winston could read the slight note of hesitation. Of course Franklin would hesitate, especially if Germany did not declare war on America by then. Japan, no matter how perfidious the attack, must be the secondary concern of the moment. Hitler was literally at the gates of Moscow, and regardless of Stalin’s assurances to the contrary, if that city should fall before Christmas, chances were the Soviet resistance would collapse, and by spring, England would again be standing alone--unless it could count America on its side

  “It is late here, sir, so I will sign off. So we are agreed upon a visit and some time to chat. I’ll have my staff start immediate coordination with yours. Perhaps several days before Christmas would be good.”

  “Eleanor and I will be delighted to see you. Plan to stay at the White House with us.”

  “Good, then it is settled. God be with you and your men this day.”

  “And also with you and yours.”

  “Until later then, my naval friend,” and he waited until the carrier signal went dead, signaling the connection had been closed down

  He sat back in his chair and puffed another cigar to life, pouring a little scotch into a lot of water and sipping it slowly

  Damn all. Franklin still would not commit to Germany. If Hitler did play it smart now, he’d make some sort of gesture to America, a promise, of course to be broken later, that he was withdrawing all U-boats from the western Atlantic. Do that and the America First crowd would cheer, saying they could now go after Japan hammer and tongs, and worry about the Nazis later

  Still, even to have America in half of the world war was a step in the right direction, and now he would have to calculate how to make maximum use of that development. He smiled as he closed his eyes and began to imagine various stratagems to be used in Washington over Christmas

  Chapter Nine

  Hickam Army Air Force Base December 8, 1941 13:45 hrs local time

  “CQ, CQ, CQ. This is Kilowatt Two, George Easy Charlie, broadcasting out of Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.”

  James Watson was stretched out on the concrete floor, resting on a wool blanket, half dozing.

  A crowd was gathered around Joe and the multiband rig he had just finished installing in the only hangar on the base that had survived the air strikes and naval bombardment.

  “CQ, CQ, CQ ...”

  Joe began his call again, tweaking the dial slightly, on to a frequency the army operators told him was always monitored out of the naval base at Marc Island and the Presidio in San Francisco.

  He sat back, looking up at the aerial rig running up to a hole blown through the ceiling. Out on the roof some young sailors had cobbled together an antenna.

  Farther down the table two more short-range radios were already up and running, one for guiding in air traffic, the other for general purpose monitoring of naval ship-to-shore transmissions. A noisy diesel generator outside was providing the power. “CQ, CQ, CQ ...”

  He switched off to receive and waited. The carrier wave hissed and crackled. A momentary signal, garbled, not English . . . and then a clicking, a voice drifting in, dropping off, drifting back in again.

  “Kilowatt Two, George Easy Charlie, we read you. This is a friend stateside. Who are you?”

  James sat up, attention focused. Now the game would begin. Was it the Presidio or Mare Island monitoring station?

  “Stateside friend, are you in San Francisco?” Joe asked.

  “A question back, Kilowatt Two, are you who you say you are?”

  As the senior rank present, with Collingwood passed out on the floor, dead asleep, James realized he had to step in yet again. He sat up wearily and went over to the desk, motioning for Joe to surrender the chair. This young man had done a remarkable job and yet the kid, born in Japan, did have an accent that, well, sounded Japanese. Joe did not resist as he stood up.

  Several sailors slapped Joe on the back, thanking him. Interesting, James thought. When I brought him in here, holding up the fake orders from CinCPac giving him access to the base, he was met with barely concealed hostility. But after we worked together for a couple hours, that melted away. Joe is now “one of us.”

  He wondered if Margaret and her mother were OK. Already there were rumors circulating that all Japanese and those of Japanese descent on the island were to be rounded up and placed in isolation. My God, if they did that, he had announced loudly, he’d go to the damn camp with them.

  So far it was only rumor, but what was not rumor was the report that two Japanese males had been shot to death down on the beach along the southwest coast where crowds had gathered to watch the smoke plumes from the Jap battleship that was out there, and still burning. Some damn national guardsman claimed he saw them with a radio in their car, leveled his BAR, and fired. The radio, pulled out of the wreckage, was nothing more than a standard civilian shortwave set, unable to transmit.

  He could not think about any of that now. He sat down before the radio. Joe indicated the proper switch, and he threw it.

  “Stateside friend, this is Commander James Watson, United States Naval Reserve speaking. I was stationed at,” he hesitated, “CinCPac, until it was hit yesterday.”

  “Kilowatt Two, how do I know that for certain? The last voice sounded like a Jap to me.”

  He looked over at Joe, who said nothing, eyes suddenly impassive.

  “By the way, Kilowatt Two, you know West Point always whips Annapolis at football.”

  He smiled. A tipoff. They were linked to the Presido, if indeed it was an American station and not a damn good clever Japanese trap.

  “Give him your serial number,” Dianne said, “name a few professors you had at the Academy and classmates. It’ll take time, but they can run a check.”

  He should have thought of that. There was no way in hell he could say over the open air that he was a cryptologist, a code breaker. The Presidio was Army, but surely they’d have a land line open to Annapolis, to Washington.

  “Stateside friend, it’s Navy that can carry the ball.” He paused, hoping they’d figure out the obvious, that they were talking to someone in the Navy. “Now, take this down,” and he did as Dianne suggested, adding that they could check his pilot license number and the registration number of his small Aeronca Chief, the number being something that if he was a prisoner, the enemy would most likely not think to ask about.

  “Get back to me, we’re keeping this frequency open. And while you are at it, stateside friend, you damn well better prove to me who you are as well.”

  He clicked off and sat back. The carrier wave was still on. More garbled transmissions drifting in and out, what sounded like jamming for a moment. Are
the Japs on to us? He stood up, took a cigarette from Dianne, who had already lit it, and walked the few dozen feet out to the open hangar door.

  A bulldozer was working back and forth across the huge concrete landing strip. The main runway was so wide that planes could easily maneuver around the cratering. A bunker loaded with munitions had survived, including some armor-piercing bombs and torpedoes. There was also an avgas tank, buried underground, loaded with twenty thousand gallons, which had miraculously survived as well.

  He watched a B-17, having made the short hop from Wheeler, come into the pattern, turning from base leg onto final approach, lining up. Damn good pilot, coming in a bit hot because it was a cross-wind landing, touching down with two wheels, keeping his tail high for better control, plane rolling out for a thousand feet until finally letting the tail settle. A slight swerve, which he corrected, and then he rolled out to the north end of the runway.

  The east side of the runway was being used as hard stands; a fuel truck and a couple of deuce-and-a-halves were waiting. Dozens of Army Air Force personnel gathered round, ready to manhandle off the bomb load, each bomb or torpedo with canvas slings under it, and physically carry them to be hoisted up under the plane. No one could find any surviving trolley cars that were designed to move heavy ordnance around, pulled by a small tractor or truck. So every weapon, the torpedoes weighing nearly a ton, had to be manhandled into position, a damn dangerous job.

  Two P-36s passed overhead, flying in slow circles, the only air cover available if another strike should come in.

  “Kilowatt Two, Kilowatt Two . . .”

  “They’re back,” Joe shouted, and James stubbed out his cigarette and went back to the radio.

  “Kilowatt Two here.”

  “You check out OK. And your plane, it’s a fifty-horse Chief, registration number 776 BX.” He chuckled.

  “Stateside friend, wrong on that one. It is 777 BX, upgraded to sixty-five-horsepower.”

  A pause and then a different voice came on.

  “Kilowatt Two, this is Colonel O’Brian, United States Army, chief signals officer at the Presidio. You are the same Commander Watson with a hook?”

  “The same. A souvenir from our former friends.”

  “When did you get the hook and which hand?”

  “Panay, and it’s the left hand.” He almost wanted to add “damn it,” but he didn’t blame O’Brian; he was just being cautious.

  He had a memory of this man, who held a position similar to his, monitoring Japanese transmissions. They had met at a joint Army-Navy meeting six months back, which was supposed to be for the sharing of information on Japanese codes and had turned, instead, into something of a protective turf battle on both sides. He remembered O’Brian, liked him, sitting in the back row, disgusted as the generals and admirals argued back and forth.

  “O’Brian, you have red hair, do you not?” James asked ... in Japanese.

  “I’m bald headed, you bastard,” O’Brian replied back in the same language.

  “We’re on the same wavelength then,” James responded with a laugh.

  “The same, Kilowatt Two. Kilowatt Two, it seems you are our only link.”

  That was perhaps giving away too much to anyone listening in, but he realized it was undoubtedly the truth. It was reported it could be days before the cable transfer station was repaired. By either incredible skill on the Japanese’ part, or the worst damn luck for our side, a fourteen-inch shell had blown the cable access link where the heavy wires that supported civilian and military traffic back to the mainland came out of the ocean and were tied into the mainland, severing all the lines.

  The pounding at both Hickam and Pearl had taken out their transmission centers as well. Wheeler had always relied on a land link to Hickam or the cable for linkage back to the States. Its base radios were short-range only.

  Joe and his ham radio friends were now the link and the experts to keep it up until the cables could be repaired.

  There was a pause on both sides. Now that he had the only stateside link, at least an official link, what to report? And for that matter, what to ask? Neither side had a common code source to refer to at this moment. That would be sorted out, but it could take hours, even days or weeks. Their coding systems had been destroyed when CinCPac was hit. And that made him realize just how badly they’d been hit. The delicate infrastructure of cable and radio links, updated coding systems, coordination on when to change codes, their own information here on the island about Japanese codes, all of that was lost in flaming wreckage. In one swift blow the Japanese had not only crippled the fleet and taken Pearl Harbor off the charts for months as a viable base, they had also wiped out their ability to monitor and even to communicate. Now that they had a link back to the states, what could they even do with it, other than talk in the most vague and general terms?

  “How bad is it?” O’Brian asked.

  “Bad. There were three air strikes yesterday, you undoubtedly know that. During the night we endured three hours of bombardment from at least two, repeat that, two Japanese battleships of the Kirishima class. One was crippled but still afloat reportedly twenty-five miles southwest of Oahu.”

  He looked out the hangar door. Several more planes had come in. It was obvious the Army and Navy were at least cooperating with this one, a strike was being prepped up, but against what, he didn’t know, nor would he discuss it on the air.

  He wasn’t even sure if he should report yet on the fact that the Enterprise pilots were claiming they had crippled and most likely sunk at least one Japanese carrier.

  Just what the hell else do I report? Would it be safe to give the last reported position of the Japanese fleet, in the clear? It had been radioed back by one of the valiant B-17 pilots who had found what was believed to be the main fleet, and not the two carriers struck earlier. The pilot reported four flattops, which added to the carriers the Enterprise’s, boys had attacked meant they had six, perhaps five if the report of one being sunk was true. It would tip off the Japs, though chances were they knew they’d been spotted, but it might, just might be monitored by Lexington or any subs out there.

  He went ahead.

  “Here is the last reported position of the main Japanese carrier force. Four carriers confirmed, a second group of two, one crippled or sunk.”

  He looked over at a petty officer holding a note pad, who held up the sheet with the longitude and latitude listings, and read it off.

  “Got that, Kilowatt Two. Good information. We’ll see it gets passed along.”

  “I’m transferring the mike over to one of the base radio operators,” James said. “This station is now permanently on line until ordered otherwise. Do you have any news for us before I sign off?”

  A pause.

  “Just let folks know the entire nation is mobilizing up. I’ve never seen anything like this. Recruiting stations are flooded. Help is on the way to you out there. And those Jap bastards have no idea what they’ve started, but by God we’re going to finish it.”

  An idea that Dianne had come up with earlier was now laid before him as she slipped a piece of paper in front of him, the question already written out.

  “Stateside. Do you have any bohunks around?”

  “What was that?”

  “You heard me, you stupid mick, I’m asking for a bohunk.”

  He didn’t say more. If they were in the same room he would have actually given O’Brian a big wink, like in the movies. There was silence for long seconds, and he did not dare to repeat the question. It’d be too obvious then.

  “Got you on that one, Kilowatt Two. We’ll get it taken care of.”

  “On the same wavelength then, stateside,” he said with a grin. “Thanks, stateside, I’m turning the mike over now.”

  He stood up stretching, a seaman first class taking over his chair. He caught Joe’s eye.

  “Thanks.”

  “Glad to help, sir.”

  He hesitated but had to say something.

 
; “My wife, she’s nisei, half Japanese,” he said. It sounded wooden, uncomfortable, the way he remembered more than one man saying,

  “Why, some of my best friends are colored,” and then the inevitable “but. . .” afterwards. Joe did not reply.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is this . . .” and his voice trailed off, not sure exactly what it was he was trying to say.

  “I think there’s going to be some tough times,” Joe said quietly.

  Those listening to the conversation drifted back a bit, obviously nervous, James bringing up the subject a reminder that, it was an uncomfortable one.

  “We’re all supposed to be Americans, you as well,” James finally said, knowing that sounded almost as lame as his comment about Margaret.

  “I’d like to think so,” Joe replied.

  “I’ll give you my address, phone number. You have any problem, you contact me at once. Once things calm down a bit, I’ll see if I can snatch some more CinCPac letterhead and get a letter of commendation drawn up for you, also a voucher for your equipment.”

  Joe tried to force a smile.

  “Thanks.” He hesitated. “I owe this country a lot. If this equipment is payback, that’s fine with me. If still over there, I’d most likely be drafted into their damn army and be in China or some godforsaken place fighting for that jerk of an emperor, and I’ve got two boys who’d get sucked into it too. I’m glad I could help.”

  No one spoke. A sergeant, listening in, stepped up, without saying anything gave a friendly slap to Joe’s shoulder and walked off, others now nodding as well.

  “Can you rig up another radio? I got some frequencies I’d like to see monitored.”

  “Sure, what are they?”

  “Japanese.”

  “I’ll get on it.”

  He nodded his thanks and walked out of the hangar. The northeasterly breeze was blowing the roiling clouds of smoke from the oil storage depot across the base. Flames continued to flicker from a bulldozed pile of what had once been P-36s and P-40s. Out in a cleared area, three B-17s, two PBYs, five Dauntless dive bombers, half a dozen P-40s and -36s, and three Wildcats were lined up--this time well spaced apart, with ground crews scurrying about, loading up munitions. A fuel truck was parked next to a B-17, hose connected up to a wing tank. From an old Ford truck, sailors were off loading five-gallon jerry cans of gas, hauling them over to a P-40 where an Army mechanic perched on a ladder was pouring the gas into the plane with a funnel.