“If we make the battle appear too costly, they will not face us directly. Instead, they will blockade us, bomb us, and starve us. And we will eventually submit or we will die. We must, therefore, lure them into a fight and give Ketsu-Go its chance.”
The two men settled into a comfortable, masculine silence and watched the gibbous moon’s reflection move slowly across the wind-rippled surface of the garden’s pond.
Yamamoto said, “This moon reminds me of my service with the naval attaché’s office in Washington. I wrote a poem about it.”
“May I hear it, Admiral?”
“It is a poor and clumsy construct, not worth your time.”
“You are too modest, Admiral. I insist.”
“Very well, but again you do me too much honor.” Yamamoto bowed his head for a moment, and then recited from memory.
“Tonight again
The moonlight is pure
And pellucid:
It calls to mind
My distant home.”
Kido was silent as he contemplated the poem. Then he observed, “The same moon shines over the enemy’s capital and ours, and reflects with equal beauty in the water.”
“That is true, Kido-sama.”
“Tell me, Admiral, have you considered returning to the political side, say, in a cabinet-level position?”
Yamamoto continued to look at the moon in the pond. “I could never be worthy of such an honor,” he said quietly.
“It pains me to disagree with you, Admiral, but the Emperor would benefit from your service in a higher role. He is known to have suggested that you would perform admirably as war minister.”
“All my duty belongs to the Emperor,” demurred Yama-moto.
“We will speak further,” Kido said. He got to his feet.
Yamamoto stood as well. “As my lord wishes,” replied the admiral, and the men bowed to one another.
As the lord privy seal departed, Umeryu slid the doors at either end of the room shut. Yamamoto sat down at the small table, thinking. Umeryu knelt behind the admiral. She began to massage his shoulders.
TWELVE
Okinawa; Japan
• SATURDAY, 30 DECEMBER 1944 •
OKINAWA, 1216 HOURS
The lead B-24 Liberator four-engine heavy bomber had a nose art design of interlocking rings with graduated marks around the circumference, over which was painted a skimpily clad woman wearing a colander-shaped helmet with wires dangling from it. Wavy lines of power and energy radiated from the helmet. Below the design was the name: The Skylark of Valeron, the fourth plane to bear the Skylark name. The Valeron was lead plane in the squadron formation, and Colonel Ellis Halverson was in command.
He activated his throat microphone. “Osnome One to Osnome Flight. We’re getting in range now. Look alive, everybody.” The Japanese forces on Okinawa had been contained but not wiped out. Every once in a while, a few Jap fighters would surprise a careless or unobservant American. Ellis wasn’t about to let that happen to his men.
For hours, the flight had been cruising above the Ryukyu island chain, and now the largest of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, was in sight. Okinawa was about sixty miles long, with a narrow waist only about two miles wide. Most of the population lived in the southern portion of the island, where the two major cities, Naha and Shuri, were located. That part of Okinawa was still in Japanese hands, despite the pleas of the Tenth Army commander, General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., that he be allowed to root the enemy out of their trenches and blockhouses. “Let them rot,” MacArthur was reputed to have said when he denied his aggressive army commander’s request.
Tenth Army was now headquartered in the town of Hagushi, and it was toward nearby Yantan air base that Ellis was leading his flight. It was good to get back in the cockpit again. Over the past three years, Ellis had gone from being a pilot and aircraft commander to a teacher of skip-bombing tactics, then to squadron leader, group commander, deputy wing commander, and now as CO of what was currently VII Bomber Command, Okinawa.
Ellis called military air traffic control, arranged landing clearance, and led his flight down. A few feet away from wheels down, he pulled up the nose to level the plane and throttled down. The Valeron touched down on the main gear, the nosewheel settling so smoothly you could hardly feel the bump. He turned off the active taxi way and followed the flagman’s signals. Beside him, the other planes lined up one by one.
As Ellis exited the plane, he saw a big sign painted on the hangar. It was a version of the Texaco star, and over it was written “337th Air Services Group/You Can Trust Your Crate to the Crew That’s Always Great!” He chuckled.
There was a parked jeep right outside the fence. An officer got out of it and walked through the gate and toward Ellis. He was a medium-sized man with his sandy blond hair in a crew cut. “Colonel?” he said, coming to attention and saluting. “I’m Captain Greer, VII Bomber Command Headquarters Squadron. I’m your adjutant.”
Ellis returned the salute. “Glad to meet you, Greer. We’re going to have a lot to do over the next month or so, and I’m looking forward to having you bring me up to speed. I’ve brought us another squadron, by the way. There’ll be more.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ve made an appointment for you to meet General Buckner—he’s in charge of all of Tenth Army, which means just about everything on Okinawa—and of course General Mulcahy, who runs all of Tactical Air.”
“I know General Mulcahy already, but it’ll be good to see him again. Good staff work, Captain. I appreciate it.”
“Thanks for noticing, sir. Oh—and I got you a driver and a jeep, courtesy of the marines. Right this way—one of the men will grab your luggage.” Greer led Ellis through the gate to the waiting jeep. The driver—a marine gunnery sergeant—was slouched in the seat, cap pulled down over his eyes, apparently sleeping. Greer cleared his throat loudly.
The marine sat up and lifted the cap off his forehead. He grinned as he saluted. Instead of returning the salute, Ellis yelled, “Son of a bitch!” and gave the marine a hug.
It was his old friend Pete. “How the hell are you, Ellis—I mean, Colonel?” Rachwalski said.
“Great! Better now that I see you. How did you get this assignment? I mean, a marine gunny normally doesn’t do driver duty.”
“Thank your adjutant here. He did a little digging around, passed the word to see if anyone knew you, and I happened to be taking a little I & I. It all worked out.” Rest and Recreation (R & R) was also known to the troops as Intoxication and Intercourse.
Ellis turned to Greer with a big smile. “Captain, this is one of the finest pieces of sucking up I have ever experienced in this man’s army. I am seriously impressed. Write yourself up for a commendation and I’ll sign it.” First-rate dog robbers were hard to come by, and Ellis felt extremely fortunate to have one on his team.
“Why, thank you, Colonel. I hoped you’d appreciate it,” Greer replied.
Although there was nothing Ellis wanted to do more than catch up with Pete, duty called. His jeep stopped in front of his new headquarters, a small warehouse that had been hastily converted to offices. Greer held the door for him as he walked in. “I got you the office with the window,” he said.
Ellis said. “Remind me to promote you, Greer, as long as it’s not to a rank that means you have to go somewhere else.”
Ellis barely had time to hang up his flight jacket before Greer was pulling him along to his first meeting. The improvised conference room still smelled of slightly overripe vegetables. The single bare lightbulb hanging over the “conference table”—a sheet of plywood resting on cinder blocks—had an annoying tendency to sway back and forth every time a truck drove by, which was often.
“Colonel, these are your group commanders,” Greer said. Five men stood.
“I feel like it’s old home week,” Ellis said. “I’ve flown alongside the 41st many times, and as for the 38th—well, I knew them back when they were still 7th Air Force. I flew with 69th Squadron off Midway Is
land. It was a damn shame about Captain Collins.” His old commander had bought it during the Guadalcanal campaign.
The 41st and 38th Bomb Groups (Medium) both flew B-25 Mitchells. The 41st had always flown the B-25. They were the group that flew the Tokyo Raid in 1942 under the command of Jimmy Doolittle. Their current CO was Harry Durrance. The 38th had been a B-26 group originally. The B-26, sadly for Ellis, had been phased completely out of the Pacific Theater. Don Hall was in command.
“As for the 494th, I understand that Okinawa has been the first major action for ‘Kelley’s Kobras,’ right?”
Larry Kelley nodded. “That’s right. But not the last.”
“And Russ”—Ellis shook the hand of Russell Waldron, commander of the 11th, “it’s good to be part of the mighty Grey Geese again.” The two heavy bomb groups, with a total of eight squadrons, flew B-24 Liberators. Ellis had commanded the 11th for about six months when it was just converting to Liberators from the older B-17s.
“But most important, of course, is this man,” Ellis said, shaking the hand of the commander of the 13th Air Services Group, whom he hadn’t met before. “Without him, we all stay on the ground.”
“Damn right,” said the group commander, grinning as he shook Ellis’s hand. “And don’t you ever forget it! The name’s John Connelly, boss. This place is a nuthouse, but you get used to it.”
With Greer running his headquarters squadron, his team was complete. Ellis was very pleased. It looked like he had top-notch people working for him, and it was a whole lot easier being in charge when you had good people you could trust. Ellis sat down, and his commanders followed suit.
“General Kenney sends his compliments, which will follow in writing shortly. Excellent work. You made 5th Air Force proud,” Ellis said.
“Does that mean we get to go home now?” Connelly joked.
“I wish. But as they say, the way home runs right through downtown Tokyo, and the faster we get that over with, the faster we all get to go home. You’ve done a great job on the Okinawa mission, but it’s mostly over. There may be some additional missions you’ll be flying to support Tenth Army, but basically Operation Iceberg is over.”
“We’re just going to let the Japs sit at the south end of the island?” Russ, the commander of the 11th Bomb Group (Heavy) asked.
“Yep. Why not? We’ve let them sit on islands all over the Pacific. And the terrain in the southern half of this island is hell: rock ridges, valleys, miles of fortifications. Mac himself is the one who said we should just let them rot there. As long as they can’t bother anybody too much, they might as well be dead for all the support they’ll give Hirohito.”
“Right,” Connelly said. “I met an Aussie colonel yesterday who says that his division, and two more from down under, are going to sit on those lines until the Japs come out, or the war ends. He wasn’t too happy about it, either—says his men have been getting the short end of the stick all over the Pacific, while Mac and ‘his’ marines get all the headlines.”
“True enough,” Ellis said with a shrug. “But either way, fewer of our boys get killed. Besides, what do we need this island for, when it comes down to it?”
“Airfields,” said Bob.
“Airfields,” agreed Ellis. “We’ve got them. And now we’ve got to start planning for the next phase, which is called Operation Olympic. We’ll be flying tactical support for the invasion of Kyushu. Here’s problem one: this is VII Bomber Command, but it’s really a slightly overstrength bomber wing. We need at least three wings, so we’re going to be bringing in a whole lot of people and planes and getting them to work together. And we don’t have a lot of time.
“We’ve got three air forces in the Pacific Theater now. There’s us, 5th Air Force. We’re the tactical specialists. We’re supporting the invasion, all phases. There’s the new 20th Air Force. They’re strategic, built around the new B-29s.”
“Don’t they have that new general from Europe?” asked Bob.
“That’s right. Curtis LeMay is his name. Eats nails for breakfast, I understand.”
“Is he under Kenney?”
“Nope,” Ellis replied. “He’s equal to General Kenney but subordinate to General MacArthur.”
“How about 13th Air Force?” Russ asked.
“They’re responsible for air transportation, convoys, and whatever minor missions are left over. We’re stripping away a lot of their units for 5th Air Force.”
“Which means they end up a vacation resort, just like 7th Air Force,” the commander of the 38th chimed in. The 7th, reporting to Admiral Frank Fletcher in Hawaii, had nothing to do but escort and shipping duties. It was comparatively easy duty, and the other aviators tended to make semiresentful fun of them.
“Pretty much. So, problem two: the fastest way to get everybody together is going to be to swap some squadrons around, and maybe even some officers. I know that’s not pleasant to contemplate—” A chorus of groans had already started. “But we have to do what we have to do.” Ellis stood up and looked at his team. “I know you’ll do what’s necessary.”
Halverson’s meeting with General Buckner, commander of Tenth Army, was a quick courtesy call, consisting of a handshake, a welcome, and a dismissal. More substantive was his meeting with General Mulcahy. Mulcahy was a two-star marine general whom Ellis had met when Mulcahy commanded all marine aviation on Guadalcanal. He was a gruff man and often quite demanding, but Ellis felt he could get along well enough with him. Mulcahy, however, had been more concerned with the battle for Okinawa than for any preplanning for Kyushu, so Ellis ended up briefing him more than he got briefed in return.
When he finally felt he could take a breather, he got Pete to drive him first to the PX for some liquor, and then to his new quarters, which were in the only hotel in Hagushi. “Come in for a drink. I’d take you to the O Club if I could, but you know the rules.”
“Yeah, I know,” Pete replied. “No worries, mate. Uh, sorry. Been hanging out with Aussies too much.” Ellis laughed.
The hotel was Japanese in style. Ellis got a room about ten feet square, with a futon on the floor, a small dresser for his stuff, and thin paper screens that afforded little privacy by American standards. The two men sat cross-legged on the floor. Ellis unwrapped the package of Dixie cups he’d bought at the PX, put out one for each of them, and poured them full of scotch. He lifted his paper cup. “To Johnny.”
“To Johnny.” They drank.
Ellis crumpled up his paper cup and threw it at the screen door. “Goddammit!”
“What?”
“I just missed him. I just missed him.”
“Johnny?”
“Yeah. In the Philippines. I was there when they liberated the first camps. I found out Johnny had been moved to Manila. When we got into Manila, I managed to get in with the first units and I was there when they broke into Bilibid Prison. There were men there, but Johnny had been taken away days before. Days!” His eyes were wet.
“Damn.” Pete was quiet. “Damn. That means he got shipped to Japan, right?”
“Yeah. On a ship without Red Cross markings. Which means we might have torpedoed it.”
“You don’t know? Have you been able to find out anything?” Pete quietly took out another Dixie cup, filled it full of scotch again, and handed it to Ellis. Ellis downed it in a gulp. Pete poured a third but didn’t hand it over immediately.
“Nothing. I haven’t been able to find out a thing. The Japs don’t care if they furnish the information or not. Every once in a while a list of names comes through, but it’s so old you don’t know whether those people are alive or not.” Ellis put his face in his hands. He felt Pete’s hand on his shoulder.
“It’s too bad you’re not flying the real Skylark of Valeron,” Pete said. “You could simply go get him.”
Ellis lifted his head. “Hell, with the real Valeron, I could whip Japan and be back before dawn.” He grinned. His eyes were wet. “I think about him all the time.”
“So do I,”
said Pete. “It isn’t the same without him. I hope he makes it through so the Three Skylarks are still a team when the war’s over.”
Ellis shook his head. “You landed here.”
“I did, but strangely enough, this turned out to be a cake-walk. It was two weeks before we blundered into any major Jap positions, and then instead of fighting, we decided to hell with it.”
“Kyushu won’t be like that. I presume you’re scheduled.”
“Yeah. And you’re the boss, but I’ll bet you’ll be flying at least some of the missions.”
“I have to. It’s part of command.”
“Well, considering the situation, there’s two ways we could all reunite …,” Pete said.
Ellis raised his eyebrows. “Now that’s a positive outlook on things.”
Pete laughed. “Ah, hell. We can’t do anything except our best. No, that sounds too sappy. Let’s drink to Lady Luck, okay? And maybe to getting to Worldcon in ‘45?”
Ellis hoisted his cup. “To Lady Luck—and an end to this goddamn war!”
CAMP SHINJUKU, TOKYO, JAPAN, 0145 HOURS
The hold was packed solid with men and filth and vomit. Outside, explosions rocked the ship, each blast closer than the last. The concussions threw men against each other, crushing those closest to the wall. Prisoners screamed and wept in the utter darkness. They hammered on the unyielding hatch and begged the Japanese to unlock the hold and let them out. The bodies of the dead were trampled, and the sick and incapacitated were likewise trampled until they were dead.
As always, the Japanese had other concerns. The prisoners meant nothing to them. They’d proved that time and again.
Another explosion, much louder and closer than the others, shook the transport. Metal shrieked in protest and the ship slammed sideways like a child’s toy smacked by a baseball bat. The vessel heeled over nearly ninety degrees, turning bulkhead into deck and deck into bulkhead. Men tumbled and fell into one another in the darkness, then tumbled once again as the ship righted itself. Cries of pain added to the cacophony. Airplanes, engines whining, roared past the stricken ship.
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