“Another tin-pot invader who thought he could take on England,” Spaatz growled, the closest they ever got to the real reason why they were all aboard this plane, flying back to the States.
Once in the air the Americans had gone aft to the luxury suite and left the rest of the plane to him. It was almost amusing in a way, all this vast plane to himself, the stewards and chef waiting for any request he might have.
And so the request was yet another Clipper Special, and he settled down in the luxury of the forward compartment in one of the huge oversized chairs, on the starboard side, facing aft to avoid the late afternoon sunlight streaming in through the window.
Setting down his drink, he pulled the attaché case out from an overhead rack, first checking to make sure that the small yellow grease pen dots on the latches had not been smeared. No one had touched it.
Producing the key attached to his watch chain he unlocked the case and opened it, pulling out a sheaf of papers, the start of his written report, which when completed would be nearly the length of a book.
His initial impressions of England’s response at the start of the war were that it was woefully foolish and shortsighted; an aggressive response in the first weeks might very well have overrun Germany clear to the Rhine, or at least taken out the Ruhr industrial basin, that in itself ending the fight.
Its remarkable failure of intelligence, preparation, and coordination of command with her allies when the Germans finally turned their gaze westward on May 10 and the obvious consternation within the government in the weeks that followed when France collapsed, something any astute observer should have easily foreseen.
And yet, on the other side of the coin, he admired their masterful handling of defeat, the evacuation of an entire army literally under the shadow of the Luftwaffe; it was still a mystery to him why the Germans had not closed the trap. But much of that was old news; other observers, the entire world had been watching for months. His interest, of course, was supposed to be naval, but his actual travel was severely restricted due to England’s wartime security. Still, he had a perspective now that only a few score of his countrymen could lay claim to; he had witnessed the summer of German air assaults to destroy the RAF and thus open the way for a seaborne invasion.
Here was a case study to note in detail, and he started to shift through his papers, carefully stored in individually sealed folders related to various subjects ranging from effectiveness of German weaponry; to the delayed-action bombs, which were interesting, at times creating far more disruption than the explosion itself would have achieved, but of course not viable in any way whatsoever against a naval target; on down to his personal observations regarding the Spitfire versus the German 109s and 110s.
He caught movement from the comer of his eye and looked up. An American, Spaatz, was in the main lounge, which would soon be converted over to where dinner would be served, a steward handing the American a drink, two drinks actually.
The American looked his way and then started forward. As he cleared the spiral staircase to the upper deck the American slowed, motioned with the second drink in his hand.
This could be interesting Genda thought, and he nodded agreement, pushing back the nearly empty glass on the sidearm of his chair. He quickly closed up the folder he was about to work on. put it back in the attaché case and snapped it shut.
Spaatz had sharp, rugged features, a bit of an oversized nose, whether from drink or a good fistfight, it was hard to tell. But it was obvious he was “hard”; though most likely around fifty, he moved with the ease and tone of someone in top shape, even as the Clipper bounced and sideslipped slightly as it momentarily went into a bank of clouds.
He kept the two drinks balanced and smiled.
“Speak English?” he asked.
Genda smiled and nodded. ”But of course.”
“Don’t worry about the turbulence, always get a bit of a bump when you fly through a cloud.”
“I know,” Genda replied. “I’m a pilot as well.”
The American smiled and Genda could see the appraising look. He was dressed today in what the Brits called “mufti,” dark double-breasted suit with vest and tie, while Spaatz was in uniform.
Genda stood up and bowed slightly. “Lieutenant Commander Genda Minoru, until this week naval attaché to the Japanese Embassy in London.”
“Carl Spaatz, Colonel, United States Army Air Corps.” There was a momentary pause, and then Spaatz extended the drink, and to Genda’s relief it was not the slightly fruity- tasting Clipper Special. It was honest to goodness scotch, neat.
“Excellent choice in drinks, Colonel,” Genda said, motioning for this colonel to sit down across from him.
“So, you said you fly,” Spaatz asked, first raising his own scotch in a friendly salute that Genda replied to. “What?” Genda laughed. “Everything the Japanese Navy has put in the air since the early twenties.”
“I’ve heard about this new plane you have coming out, the Zero. You get your hands on one?”
“I’ve been hearing about your new P-38. Is it a match for the German twin-engine 110s?”
The two paused for a second, then both laughed.
“Touché,” Spaatz said softly.
“Actually the Zero is superb, I think a match for the Spitfire in a dogfight; at high altitude, though, it might be more even.”
Spaatz nodded. “If a German ever comes up against a 38 in those 110 crates, it’s their funeral. That plane of theirs is a mule.”
“A mule?”
“Neither horse nor donkey, a mule. Designed as a long- range fighter escort for their bombers, it can’t get into a tight fight; in fact it needs its own escorts if it is to survive. Use it as a bomber it has no load-carrying capacity. The worst of both. They should trash them all or simply use them for low-level ground support or perhaps as night fighters.”
“I agree. The same for their Stukas. I heard they were torn apart and withdrawn from the main battle by early August,” Genda replied.
“Looking for information on that?” Spaatz responded.
“But of course.”
The American chuckled. “It’ll be public knowledge soon enough. The Brits claimed that unescorted the Stukas were like fish in a barrel, dropped dozens of them. The Germans certainly screwed that, sending them in without heavy escort.”
“What were they hitting?” Genda asked.
Spaatz smiled.
“I’ll have to leave that for you to find out.”
“Touche,” Genda replied with a smile and Spaatz smiled.
“When did you start flying?’ Genda asked, figuring it was best to shift targets and put his companion back at ease. Besides, he already knew, the Stukas were slaughtered trying to take out the new British radio-guided directional towers, what the Americans were calling radar. The entire British coast was ringed with the towers, which looked like radio towers, but strung with a tangle of wires. He wondered how far along his own government was in developing them. Such a tool, to be able to detect enemy planes from a hundred miles out, would yet again change the entire nature of carrier-based warfare, all but eliminating the element of surprise, something to be sought by the attacker and dreaded by the defender. Suddenly the balance might shift toward the defender if this new radar worked. Something more to think about on the way home.
Spaatz grinned and sipped his drink.
“Actually flew support for Pershing back in our little romp through Mexico in 1916. Saw some action on the western front, 1918. Things sure have changed since then.”
He paused. “I mean, look at this plane. It’s just thirteen years since Lindy crossed the Atlantic, and the whole world was mesmerized by the feat. Now we cross in luxury, complete to flushing toilets, and a chef on board. Who’d have thought it?
“Give it another three or four years and planes will be flying the Atlantic nonstop, maybe even the distance from San Francisco or at least Hawaii straight on to Tokyo.” Even as he finished speaking there was a slight s
tiffening between the two, and Genda wondered if the implications both thought of were the same. This size plane, perhaps bigger, perhaps six engines, stripped down as a bomber, carrying five, maybe ten tons of bombs across an entire ocean, five hundred of them I could level San Francisco or yes, Tokyo, in a single night. He knew that Yamamoto had been worrying about the implications of Japanese paper and wood houses if such a bomber could hit their cities with incendiary weapons. It would be a disaster. But it was the type of weapon he knew his own country, for now, could never afford; only the profligate Americans had such surplus of wealth, of aluminum, and above all else aviation gas. A fleet of five hundred such bombers, flying such an attack, would consume more fuel in a single night that every plane in the Japanese navy would use in half a year.
“Did you see much of the air battles?” Genda asked.
Spaatz looked out the window, gently swirling the drink in his hand.
“A bit,” he said noncommittally.
Genda did not need to ask. Reports had come into the Japanese Embassy throughout the summer of teams of Americans coming over to evaluate the fighting and set up conduits for supplies. Already replacement aircraft, parts, ammunition, tanks, and artillery were flooding across the Atlantic, making good the losses of the spring in Belgium, Holland, and France.
“And your thoughts?” Spaatz asked.
Genda hesitated. After all, he had downed three drinks in the last couple of hours and the nonpressurized cabin, flying at eight thousand feet, lowered oxygen just enough to affect inhibitions as well. He wondered just how strong his drink was relative to that of this sharp-eyed colonel. He wondered, as well, what he’d be like to face out there among the clouds.
But what the hell, as the Americans said. It was no state secret and perhaps a bit of truthfulness might reveal something in return.
“The Germans have lost, at least for the moment they have lost.”
“I agree,” Spaatz replied sharply, ‘‘but I’m curious as to your observations, you being in the navy.”
“Two weeks ago I would have said the Germans had won. After much negotiation I was allowed out of London, under escort, to go to the Kentish coast to observe. The British were rightly engaging the Germans over their own territory, not venturing out into the Channel to seek engagement.”
“Why do you see that as good? It could be called a lack of forward defense. Their airfields near the coast have all been nearly pounded out of existence.
“Every British pilot shot down still had a chance of bringing a crippled plane in, or to bail out to fight another day.”
“I understand you Japanese do not like to bail out,” Spaatz said softly, looking at his drink.”
“To fall into the hands of the Chinese? Some of our pilots have been found crucified.”
“And the Nationalist pilots that fall into your hands?”
“The navy has captured very few, and they have been treated with respect while in our control,” Genda replied defensively. “I cannot speak for the army.”
“I guess you’ve heard of Chennault.”
“Of course,” Genda said coldly. He was the loudmouthed, arrogant American advisor to the Nationalists. Of course he was strictly “a volunteer,” no official connection to their military or president, and yet through private venture firms, a lot of American supplies were now flowing over a road through Burma and rumors were, more and yet more American “volunteer” pilots were showing up to fight, having supposedly resigned their commissions with their own service to do so.
“Chennault supposedly tells his people to save the last bullet in their side arm for themselves if they get shot down.”
“Exactly what our pilots are told,” Genda replied, his voice pitched even.
Spaatz nodded.
“Perhaps we should turn back to here and now,” and leaning over from his chair he caught the eye of the steward in the main lounge and held his glass up and then two fingers.
Genda wanted to refuse, but the scotch did taste good and he would nurse the next one. The neatly attired steward promptly arrived with two more drinks and took away the empties.
“So the British apparently are conceding the Channel just for the moment,” Spaatz said.
“And on the invasion day, if it should come, I would pity the German glider troops and paratroopers, an essential first wave for securing the coastal airfields and perhaps even the harbor at Dover. The Germans have never developed the airlift capacity for a large-scale invasion, whereas a hundred planes such as this giant we are now in, properly covered by fighters, could place an entire division across the channel in thirty minutes.”
“An interesting concept,” Spaatz replied, and neither spoke of the giant gliders that both knew about, the huge Me-321s under construction in Germany and capable of bringing in upward of 150 men--but also a death trap if a single fighter got on to it or the twin tow-planes needed to haul the giant.
“The Germans have not actually seized control of the air. Achieve that on the first day of battle, and the conclusion is ultimately foregone.
“You and I are both airmen,” Genda continued. “Perhaps the new doctrine is to totally seize control of the air on the first day, and victory is inevitable. The Germans pretty well did achieve that over France and definitely over Poland; they have failed in England.”
“But you saw the raid on September 7,” Spaatz said, and there was an edge of excitement to his voice. “My God, I have never seen so many planes in the air at the same time in my entire life.”
“And they were bombing the wrong targets,” Genda said quietly.”
Spaatz looked at him.
Genda shook his head; perhaps he was indeed saying too much.
“What target would you have chosen instead?” Spaatz pressed.
Genda smiled and held up his drink in a salute.
“Perhaps it is only fair that I ask that question of you.”
Spaatz chuckled. “I think we are on the same wavelength. I’d have put that power out there the first day. The Germans have proven the genius of the tactical application of airpower directly onto the battlefield. There is no denying that. But this is more a strategic objective. And they have missed the point. It is not about the factories that make planes or engines, or even process the fuel. It is about the young men inside those planes.”
Genda nodded. He thought of his own comrades, those who had first sailed aboard Akagi and Kaga, testing out the new theories of air war at sea. There wasn’t a man of them still alive who did not have eight hundred, even a thousand hours of flying time. Reports indicated the British were indeed at the bottom of the barrel, having shaved off dozens of hours of training time to rush air crews into action, some going up with as little as fifteen hours’ experience in their planes.
Carl added, “I’d have kept pounding the airfields, their command centers, naval targets along the coast. Their bombers have been taking such heavy losses, though, that it seems the German fighters are increasingly tied to protecting the slow, lumbering aircraft bombers, not even designed for the mission of a heavy bombardment of a city. No, I’d have had pure fighter sweeps going in, looking for fights, and if the Brits didn’t come up, catch them on the ground. Once superiority there is won, then let the bombers be used judiciously to prepare the way for the attack. They’ve done it ass backward.”
Genda smiled at the “Americanism” of ass backward and chuckled.
His analysis exactly, and this little conversation would go into his report as well. The Americans were perhaps thinking along the same lines. They must see now the deciding factor of airpower. The German air force was not designed for strategic operations; that was something that most likely only the Americans could ever afford to purchase, fleets of heavy four - or even six-engine bombers.
Japan could never afford it, and he felt a wave of envy. And yet that envy had to be transcended. If a potential opponent had a distinct advantage, which the Americans so obviously did--just by the sheer massive size of
their country--then one had to think around that advantage, to a path that would defeat them nevertheless. No, Japan’s planes would have to be light, at least for the start if war was to come, and light meant fast, swift, and slashing in hard.
The Germans had missed their chance. Granted they had to play against the tricky weather of the region, the need to build or occupy French fields, move up logistical supports before launching their attacks, but those attacks should have come on day one, with overwhelming force and aimed at but one target, the Royal Air Force and the young men inside the planes. Kill them and the battle is won.
In a carrier strike it should be the same. Take out your opponent’s airpower first, then whatever is on the surface of the sea can be destroyed by the bombers and torpedo planes that follow.
That would be his report back to the staff college and his admiral. Airpower would be the key, but it must not be squandered. They could never hope to have the massive air fleets he had witnessed over London, witnessed being so miserably used. No, it would have to be a lightning strike on the first day, designed to first and foremost cripple the enemy airpower; that would mean catching their army air forces on the ground, or just barely getting up; and as for their navy ... the carriers, break through the fighter screen, then sink their carriers on the first day and their entire fleet would be naked from above, to be picked off at leisure.
He looked over at Spaatz and nodded. He found he actually liked this man--another pilot, and pilots, no matter what divided them, could always find one common love to talk about, a favorite plane, a near escape to be chuckled about--and both shared that inner realization, the joy of floating in the heavens at dawn, or in evening twilight, or dancing between mountains of billowing white on sunlight afternoons.
And so they talked awhile longer as the Boeing 314 Clipper raced westward, chasing the retreating sun, leaving the war zone behind, and the tension between the two dropped when they talked of these things rather than calculated all that might yet come or maneuvered to wrangle just a little more information from the other. Yet another drink eased the mood more. He could sense that Spaatz had been ordered up here to “pump him,” as the Americans would say, but that part of the conversation was past, unless one or the other, with a bit too much drink, made a mistake, and now they just relaxed and talked flying.
Pearl Harbour - A novel of December 8th Page 16