Ghost Carrier: They Died to Fight Another Day

by Robert Child

  Admiral Mullinnix, his uniform disheveled from the battle, stewed in his ready room. How had it come to this, he wondered. How had a once proud country and her naval fortunes turned so dark that he had been ordered to surrender an entire sea going task force to the enemy? He felt he had awakened in a horrible nightmare. He longed for his past. Hell, he even preferred his own denied death in the other world to this. At least he had gone down fighting.

  The phone on his desk rang. He knew it would be to alert him that the Japanese Admiral was approaching. He picked up the receiver.

  “Mullinnix. Yeah, right. I’ll be on deck in ten minutes.”

  He returned the receiver to the hook slowly. He wondered what the surrender terms would be though he was in no position to bargain. He knew the Imperial Japanese Navy to be ruthless. They were fanatics. He closed his eyes and silently prayed for mercy, not for himself, but for his crew and the task force. There was great pain and suffering ahead. He could feel it in his war-weary bones. A tangible harshness permeated the air mingled with a bleak emptiness. His brain finally recognized what the empty feeling was – defeat.

  USS LISCOME BAY – FLIGHT DECK

  The Special Detail of twenty officers assembled with both the Naval Colors and the American flag folded and cased by the honor guard. The majority of the other officers secured themselves below deck. Mullinnix sought to spare his men the humiliation and indignity of this particular wartime ceremony. Joe Rusk, however, had found his way topside and hid back behind a bulkhead near the number two gun. He had to see this unfold with his own eyes.

  All was silent except for the waves crashing softly against the hull and the curious whistling of the wind through the wires on the conning tower. As Joe listened to this sound, he looked skyward. He had never heard this eerie whistling before. It was a beseeching moan as if the ship itself was wailing for her crew. This sound made Joe’s blood run cold. Suddenly off the bow, Japanese zeros appeared in a squadron of six. They buzzed then circled the carrier in a show of unneeded enemy intimidation.

  Off the port side, the diesel sputter of the Japanese transport vessel made all heads turn as the enemy ship drew near. Another sailor detail waited at the rails to direct the vessel into position along side the carrier.

  Mullinnix emerged on deck in formal white dress uniform taking his place opposite the bridge. He watched the Japanese ensigns emerge from their climb up the shipside ladder onto the flight deck. They were the advance team to make certain the area was secure. The ensigns carried carbines and motioned American sailors to step back to make room. Two Japanese officers followed the security detail. Mullinnix figured these were the Captain of the Admiral’s flagship and his First Officer. They approached Mullinnix and saluted with a slight bow of their bodies. They took their places off to the right then stood rigid, eyes unblinking.

  Finally Vice Admiral Yamaguchi emerged onto the flight deck. He was dressed for the occasion in formal Japanese white dress uniform with ribbons adorning the left breast. The jacket had shoulder boards with two gold stars embroidered on each. His cap was also white with a black band and center gold embroidered naval insignia.

  Yamaguchi’s walk was purposeful and confident. He was all business. As the Vice Admiral reached Mullinnix, he snapped and held a crisp salute. Mullinnix returned it begrudgingly.

  “Admiral, I am Vice Admiral Yamaguchi of Fifth Fleet,” he said in his perfect Princeton educated accent. “I will now accept your unconditional surrender.”

  “Unconditional?” Mullinnix protested, “We are not going to discuss terms?”

  “There are no terms to discuss unless you wish the annihilation of your remaining battle group.”

  Joe still hiding near the number two gun and hearing the whole exchange sunk into depression. Events had progressed way beyond hopeless. Joe knew becoming a prisoner of the fanatical Japanese was a certain death sentence.

  Mullinnix looked down, still not believing he was about to hand over his remaining ships and more than five thousand men to become prisoners of the enemy. “What’s going to happen to my crew?”

  “You and your crew will be escorted to our detention center at Pearl Harbor. I can give you no further information.”

  “And my ships?”

  “The ones not at the bottom of the ocean will be added to the roster of our First Fleet.”

  Mullinnix paused a moment barely containing his rage then in a booming voice shouted, “Lieutenant!”

  A bewildered young Lieutenant ten yards to his rear replied from next to the honor guard, “Yes, Sir?”

  “Initiate the transfer.”

  Mullinnix stepped back into line with his men and allowed the color guard led by the Lieutenant to move forward toward the Japanese Vice Admiral.

  Surprise and anger swept over Yamaguchi’s face as he turned and glared at Mullinnix. A Vice Admiral does not accept surrender from a Lieutenant. Yamaguchi called back to an officer in Japanese, “Lieutenant, forward! The dishonor on this day will not be mine. Accept the flag of the defeated Americans.”

  An equally young Japanese Lieutenant came forward. Yamaguchi glared at Mullinnix a final time then turned and stormed back toward his escort vessel. Mullinnix seething with contempt watched him leave and grumbled, “Jap son of a bitch.”

  Yamaguchi, within earshot, froze mid step. He returned and faced Mullinnix. “You have heard of the conditions within our prisoner of war camps, Admiral, yes?”

  Mullinnix nodded.

  “The rumors of horrors are not fabrications I can assure you.” Then the Japanese admiral shifted his gaze to the assembled American sailors and shouted so all could hear, “In fact, I would be very surprised to learn if you or any of your crew survive the month.”

  Yamaguchi nodded to Mullinnix then turned briskly and resumed his exit from the captured Liscome Bay.

  Chapter 10

  DAYTON, OHIO

  Frank sat on the edge of the bed in his home in the late afternoon silently staring across at the framed photographs on the dresser. Everyone he had ever loved, anyone he had ever given a damn about stared back at him from the silver frames. If he couldn’t get his father back, all these people would disappear from his life. It was soul crushing.

  He realized at that moment that he had spent his entire lifetime taking almost everything he had for granted, especially the people he loved. Now his very existence hung in the balance along with all the people he cared most about in the world.

  Unbearable hopelessness overwhelmed him. How in the hell was he ever going to get his Dad back? How in the world was it even possible? He hung his head and a river of tears flowed. He cried in anguish, not for himself, but for the people who surrounded him and had made his life worth living. Now they were all going to disappear.

  NEXT MORNING

  Frank awoke with a start, his eyes bright. He had slept soundly the entire night. This was a new sensation. There had been no horrifying visions. In fact, he couldn’t recall anything of the night except placing his head on the pillow at 10 pm closing his eyes and going to sleep. His energy was surprisingly renewed. He literally leaped out of bed. It woke up Katie. She looked over at him in surprise as he danced back and forth in front of the dresser.

  “Frank, what’s gotten into you? Are you feeling all right?”

  “Katie, I’m more than all right. I didn’t have the visions. I slept the whole frickken night.”

  “You did?”

  “Damn right I did. I feel like a million bucks. I’ve got so much energy.” He continued to glide giddily back and forth across the room like a man just released from prison.

  “You know what?”

  “What, dear?”

  “I feel like taking a walk.” He looked down at his wrist to check the time only to discover his watch was missing. There wasn’t even a tan line.

  “Honey, have you seen my watch?”

  “It’s always on your wrist.”

  “I know, I know. I don’t remember taking it off. Only ti
me I ever take it off is to take a shower.” He headed for the bathroom.

  Katie got out of bed to help him search.

  “It must be under something.”

  Frank continued to slide open drawers multiple times, then peered into the medicine cabinet. Katie looked in the tub and behind the toilet. The watch was nowhere to be found.

  Frank stormed out of the bathroom, anger spilling out mixed with a little stab of fear. He turned back around to Katie. “That watch is the only thing I had of his. The only thing. And now it’s gone! Gone!” He stomped down the stairs and out the front door.

  Katie lingered in the bathroom. Chills traveled down her spine. She knew the watch was not just lost. Something had changed.

  OFF THE COAST OF MOLOKAI ISLAND

  Two Japanese transport vessels carrying a select group of six hundred of the captured American sailors of Task Force 52.13 steamed forward toward the brutal wind blown northern coast of Molokai. All of the sailors in Mullinnix’s battle group had been separated and sent to different sections of the Hawaiian Islands. The prisoners on these two ships were Mullinnix’s flagship crew from the Liscome Bay. Standing on the deck, the Admiral could not in his deepest, darkest nightmares imagine the further horrors that awaited his crew. The transport ships were sailing toward an inhospitable island and a barren shelf of land the approximate size of lower Manhattan. The shelf jutted into the Pacific from the base of the tallest sea cliffs in the world. Three sides of the peninsula were ringed by jagged lava rocks, making landings impossible, and the fourth side consisted of the two-thousand-foot natural cliff wall so sheer that mountain goats tumbled off its face.

  Adding misery and fear to the remoteness of this natural prison, this forbidding place held a sinister secret that had completely sealed this spit of earth off from the rest of humanity.

  KALAUPAPA PENINSULA

  Joe Rusk, gaunt and scratching a growing beard, exited from one of the hastily built canvas shelters within what they came to call “the pen” to greet his second week of captivity. He and his fellow sailors were surrounded on four sides by a twenty-foot high razor wire topped fence under the watchful eyes of a company of 100 hardened, fanatical Japanese soldiers. Joe figured these were the hard luck bastards who drew the short-straws. Their brutality perhaps sprung from their assignment to this harsh, desolate place. Even the most minor infractions, such as swiping an extra piece of bread on the chow line, were dealt with severely. The first beheading Joe and the men were forced to witness caused most of the sailors to instantly vomit, including Joe. The head was sliced clean off with a single two-handed strike from a long Japanese samurai sword. The headless sailor’s heart shot geysers of blood from the neck as the body’s hands convulsed wildly.

  The worst beheading and the image that gave Joe nightmares was the time one unfortunate soul kept screaming to God for help as the Japanese soldier looming over him raised his sword for the fatal strike. After the sickening slice, the screams seemed to echo another second as the head flew through the air. Its terror filled eyes wildly blinked open and closed. The head rolled to a stop at Joe’s feet with its open eyes staring up at him.

  Joe was convinced there was not another place on the earth more fitting of the term, God forsaken. He felt with absolute certainty God had left here a long time ago.

  The perimeter of the prison camp closest to the high fences was littered with the stench of death from the rotting corpses of the men who collapsed from thirst or starvation. In this dead zone, bodies lay prostrate on the ground, their lifeless empty eye sockets staring up at the blazing sun as seagulls and pelicans fought over the carcasses. The crew was never allowed to bury their fellow fallen sailors. Occasionally the guards would throw the remains into the sea to reduce the smell.

  Joe and the men soon recognized that to the Japanese, POW status meant they were the lowest form of life on earth. Not even human. Japanese soldiers considered surrender a disgrace. If capture became imminent, a Japanese soldier often committed suicide. In the Japanese mind, the POWs had disgraced their uniform and country and did not deserve to live.

  For his part, Joe was barely hanging on. He had adjusted to the one piece of bread at breakfast and another at dinner. It was the dysentery and his meager four-ounce daily water ration that was draining the life from him. He constantly drifted in and out of hallucinations. This morning he woke up and thought he saw and felt his old Hamilton watch on his wrist. The one he had left with Franny. Blinking his eyes open and closed several times, the watch returned to what he expected to see -- his stainless steel Omega. But for a moment in the morning haze, Joe could have sworn on a stack of Bibles the Hamilton was absolutely real. But it was this horrific island prison camp that was all too real. Even the way they had come ashore had been another brutal fight for survival.

  Chapter 11

  TWO WEEKS EARLIER KALAUPAPA PENINSULA

  The Japanese transport vessels listed wildly from port to starboard in the churning ocean and furious gales as they neared the island coast and the highest sea cliffs the men had ever seen. On the forward most transport ship, Joe peered at the rugged landscape coming into view. Under his breath he uttered, “This is definitely not Pearl Harbor.”

  He turned away from the barren island landscape to see many of his fellow sailors dry heaving over the rails from seasick stomachs that hadn’t seen food for days. Joe felt his strength ebbing, but he was determined to survive one way or another. Many of the men shared the same mindset. They had already endured so much. Mullinnix had requested that the crew of the Liscome, which included the Deadman’s Club, remain together in the same group. Mullinnix felt that unity would be their strength. He was somewhat surprised when apparently Vice Admiral Yamaguchi agreed. But as he stood beside Joe Rusk watching the island come into view, he couldn’t help feeling a sense of dread. I should have kept my mouth shut during the surrender ceremony, he thought.

  Suddenly both Mullinnix and Joe felt the ship turning about. Joe turned to Mullinnix, “We’re not even close to shore. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” The Admiral briskly walked back toward the bridge of the vessel. Joe watched fellow sailors beginning to be herded down into the lower deck. After several minutes, Joe joined the rest of the men on the bottom deck. Theo was right behind him. The massive back access hatch had been dropped into the sea. The ship was still distant from the island. Surely not anywhere near close enough to be expected to swim to shore, Joe thought. He was wrong.

  At gunpoint, the Japanese guards began directing men into the convulsing ocean. Joe judged the swim to shore to be about 60 to 100 yards through three-foot swells. It would be a challenge for even the most experienced ocean swimmer. But Joe knew the dirty little secret that many of his fellow sailors kept. They had never learned how to swim. For many, this jump into the churning sea would be a jump to their doom.

  “No. No. I won’t! I can’t!”

  Joe recognized the young, squirming, freckle-faced sailor struggling with the guards near the open hatch. It was Bobby Cannon, one of the radar ops and a member of the Deadman’s Club. He was screaming and pushing back the Japanese sailors trying to collar him. He had his heels dug in like a dog knowing he’s on his way to the vet.

  After less than a minute, one of the older Japanese guards had seen enough. He pulled an 8mm, semi automatic Nambu from his waist holster and blasted two lead slugs into the boy’s brain.

  There was silence.

  Then chaos.

  The American sailors erupted in a chorus of curses as pushing and shoving began while the guards threw Bobby’s crumpled, lifeless body into the sea. The Japanese sailors stepped back and leveled their carbines at the Americans.

  Joe whipped around to Mullinnix three rows behind him and searched his eyes for guidance. The admiral was red-faced and angrier than a buzzing hornet’s nest. When Joe finally caught his eye, the Admiral sternly mouthed, “Stay alive.”

  Joe turned back around an
d Theo, who had been silent the entire time, finally found the courage to speak, “I cain’t swim.”

  “What?”

  Theo repeated, “I cain’t swim. I cain’t swim!”

  “Okay, okay, Theo. I’ll show you what to do. Stay beside me. I’ll make sure I go into the water first. Don’t lose sight of me, you hear. Don’t lose sight of me. I’ll wait for you in the water.”

  Theo, wide-eyed, absorbed every word.

  “First thing you gotta know about swimming is to let the water do the work. You weigh less in the water so don’t thrash around trying to float. You can float. You just gotta paddle a little to keep yourself moving forward. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Remember let the water and tide do the work. You can’t hang onto me or we’ll both drown. It’s up to you, Theo. Just like at Pearl. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I think so”

  “Theo, you gotta decide something for yourself right now. Right now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Are you gonna die today?”

  “What?”

  Joe repeated his question slowly looking directly into the large man’s eyes, “Are you going to die today?”

  A soft smile crossed Theo’s face. He understood, “Hell no, motherfucker. Hell no. I just got used to livin’ again. Hell no. Theo ain’t dyin’ today.”

  Joe knew the big man was going to make it.

  LATER ON SHORE

  Joe drenched, weakened, and spent from the swim lay face down in the sand. Theo was a short distance down the beach, doubled over coughing out seawater. Howling wind filled their ears.

  “Okiru! Okiru!” yelled a Japanese sailor now standing over Joe.