by Roger Jewett
“Soon,” he told himself. “Very soon.” And he looked ahead at Yancy’s plane. Would this man really let him die if things got tough? The question flapped in the winds of his brain like some tattered ensign of doubt. Could this man, whose machine was only a few hundred yards ahead of his, be as much his enemy as —
The Flight Leader pushed over and began his dive.
The other self melded with Jacob’s corporal being and he reached forward to the master armament switch and flipped it to its ON position. The red cover was raised and the switch indicated ON. He charged the two outboard machine guns; then the two inboard. His hand went back to the stick and his forefinger rested on the trigger, while his thumb caressed the button on the top of the stick that would “pickle off” the bombs. He was ready and pushed forward on the stick.
His eyes went to the altimeter — 10,000 feet and unwinding.
Jacob could see the leader barreling down at the target. The second and third planes and Yancy were in steep dives. The air screamed past him. The island grew larger and larger. He could see the runway and there were several hangars. Planes were on the runway. Men were running.
Jacob pointed his ship at a group of three dive bombers. The red circles on the wings of the aircraft grew larger. His eyes went to the altimeter. 2000 feet! The pull-out point. Puffs of black smoke blossomed in various sectors of the sky. Machine-gun tracers from the ground seemed to float up toward him.
Yancy pulled out of his dive and was clear.
Jacob’s finger pressed the trigger. The four 50s began to hammer. Tracers were chewing into the parked aircraft.
Yancy’s first bomb hit and exploded to the side of the runway.
Jacob pushed his own bomb release button and at the same time released the machine-gun trigger and eased back on the stick. He was level and low over the field. He came back hard on the stick. The Gs pushed him against the back of the seat.
“Climb, you fucker,” he shouted, “climb!” He was gaining altitude. He looked back. Flames and black smoke were coming from one of the hangars and several of the aircraft.
The black puffs of antiaircraft fire seemed closer.
“We’re going in again,” the flight leader said, suddenly breaking radio silence. “Follow me. Keep the same interval on each other.” He was climbing fast and turning back toward the atoll. “Pick your targets,” the flight leader said. “I have that tanker in the lagoon.”
“Planes on the runway,” Yancy called out.
“Oil storage tanks,” Jacob radioed.
The other pilots picked their aiming points.
“They’ll be waiting for us this time… You’re on your own,” the captain said. He went straight in with his guns blazing.
Following Yancy, Jacob streaked down at the island. Just as he came over the lagoon, he banked sharply to the starboard and spotted four enemy fighters taxiing on the runway. In minutes they’d be airborne.
“Four Zeros on the runway,” Jacob said, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. Sweat soaked his shirt and dripped off the end of his nose.
“Go get ’em, Jake,” the flight leader answered. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Jacob centered the tail-end Zero in his gun sight.
The Zero and the three ahead of him were moving rapidly down the runway.
Jacob dropped his nose a bit to lead him and then he pressed the trigger.
The white tracers passed the Zero’s nose. Suddenly the whole plane burst into flames and veered off the runway.
Jacob eased the stick back to take the next Zero in his sights and continued to fire his four 50s.
The tracers enveloped the plane and it slewed around in a great circle on the runway.
Jacob pulled up and, looking back, he banked hard to the port. The second Zero was on fire too.
“Good work, Jake,” the captain called. “I’ll try to get the other two.”
“Going around for another run,” Jacob answered, climbing out over the ocean to a thousand feet. There were black puffs of smoke all over the sky now and tracer trails from the ground crisscrossed one another, making a huge spiderweb that hung over the island.
“I’ve hit one, Captain,” one of the VF6 pilots shouted.
Jacob craned his neck to look around; then suddenly, at three o’clock on his starboard side, he saw the plane explode and its pieces fall into the sea.
“Fighters coming up!” another pilot yelled.
Jacob climbed, searching for contacts.
“Yance, look out… He’s on your tail,” a pilot yelled.
“Where the fuck is that Jew boy?” Yancy answered.
Jacob banked over to the left and saw the two planes.
Yancy was doing a roll, frantically trying to shake the Japanese fighter off his tail.
At full throttle, Jacob streaked toward them. He put the Zero in his sight and pressed the trigger… The guns didn’t fire. He was very close to the Zero and had time to recharge only two guns. He pressed the trigger again. The two guns chattered briefly, then stopped.
“Get him!” Yancy shouted. “Get the fucker!”
Jacob zoomed past the Zero. He could almost see the enemy’s face. For an instant he was between Yancy and the Japanese guy.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Yancy screamed.
Jacob wiped the sweat from his eyes, banked sharply to the right, and was going to come around for another try at the Zero, when suddenly the Zero’s nose dropped and he broke off contact.
“Join on me,” the flight leader said. “Join on me… Good work… We’re going home… No more chatter. Radio silence. Let’s go!”
Jacob looked back at the island. Several fires were burning and black columns of smoke were beginning to mushroom out over it. He started to climb and in a matter of minutes, slid into place alongside Yancy, who gestured to him with a clenched fist.
“Reb,” Jacob said aloud, because it made him feel good to hear the words, “Reb, you take that and shove it up your ass.” Then he raised his fist and shook it at Yancy.
Jacob circled the Big E. The signal flags, “FOX” for the letter F, were “Two-Blocked” at the yardarms to indicate that the ship was recovering her aircraft. He would be the last plane down. The adrenaline was still flowing, and he knew that once he was on board there would be a confrontation with Yancy. His flaps, wheels, and arresting hook were down, and his shoulder harness locked. He turned toward the ship and picked up the landing signal officer’s orange paddles.
The LSO’s paddles gave a series of signals and he corrected his approach to answer them.
The orange paddles were now being held straight on either side of the LSO’s body.
A “ROGER!”
Jacob was at the cut point over the ship’s stern.
The LSO made a quick slashing movement with the right paddle across his chest.
Jacob cut the throttle. Then the plane touched down and rolled forward. An instant later its hook grabbed an arresting wire and Jacob’s shoulder harness kept him from being thrown forward into the instrument panel as his Wildcat came to a stop.
Jacob slid the wing-unlocking lever forward.
Plane handlers pushed the plane’s wings back into a folded position and moved Jacob into a spot among the other parked aircraft on the forward part of the deck.
Jacob unbuckled his chute and, as he cleared the cockpit, he told the plane captain, “My guns stopped firing… I tried to clear them but couldn’t.”
“I’ll get right on it,” the man answered.
“I don’t want to get caught like that again,” Jacob said angrily, “I’ll —” He looked toward the ready room, which was in the island structure, a few feet to the rear of one of the forward gun mounts.
Yancy was at the entrance, waiting for him.
“Let me know what went wrong,” Jacob growled.
“Aye, aye, sir,” the plane captain answered.
Jacob headed for the ready room.
“Okay, Jew boy
, tell me what the hell you think you were doin’?” Yancy challenged, blocking the entrance.
Jacob’s eyes became slits. “I’ll tell you —”
The Klaxon sounded; then over 1MC, a voice said, “General Quarters… All hands man your battle stations… All hands man your battle stations!”
“We’ll settle this later, Jew boy,” Yancy said, stepping back.
The Big E’s antiaircraft guns and those of her escorts began to fire to the starboard. The ship heeled to the port as the captain maneuvered to throw the bombers off their aiming points.
“Five Bettys coming in low on the starboard side,” came over the 1MC.
In an instant the pilots in the ready room were thrown into panic. They’d rather be in the air than defenseless during an air attack. Several tried to hide under the tables, and others used chairs for cover.
“Crazy!” Jacob shouted at Yancy. “I’ll take my chances outside.” And he left the ready room.
The nearby mount was banging away at the incoming Bettys. Hot shell casings clattered onto the deck.
“They’re nuts in there!” Yancy exclaimed, coming out of the ready room.
Jacob pointed to the incoming planes in a tight V, low on the starboard side, surrounded by antiaircraft bursts.
“Shit, we ain’t hit one of those fuckers!” Yancy shouted.
The bombers swooped across the turning ship: bomb-bay doors open.
Jacob could see the bombs fall.
Split seconds later explosion followed explosion. Huge geysers of water shot up from the sea on the port side — but none of the bombs landed on the ship.
The planes roared away from the ship across her deck; the five-inch guns and machine guns fired furiously after them. Suddenly one of the bombers, smoking from an engine, swung away from the other planes to the left, circled back toward the ship, and began to come at the Big E as if it was going to land on its deck.
“The son-of-a-bitch is going to crash into the parked planes!” Jacob yelled.
The Betty was low, trying to line up with the flight deck.
Rear seat gunners in the parked Dauntless dive bombers trained their .30-calibers on the oncoming aircraft and were firing in unison with the ship’s other guns.
The Big E heeled further as she answered a hard-right rudder.
The Japanese pilot tried to follow the turning ship and dropped lower and lower. He was hit. He almost veered off, but quickly straightened out.
The Betty slammed down on the deck and, as it skidded toward the port catwalk, its starboard propeller severed the tail section of a Dauntless before it fell into the sea.
Jacob saw the man, in what was left of the wrecked Dauntless, slump over his gun.
“Let’s go,” Jacob shouted and he began to run across the deck, with Yancy close behind him.
Flames sprang up in the catwalk and were spreading under the Dauntless.
Together Jacob and Yancy clambered up the wrecked fuselage and hauled the gunner out of the plane. There was an ugly gash across his forehead and he was bleeding profusely.
Corpsmen, carrying a wire stretcher basket, ran toward them.
“I’m all right,” the man insisted, as he was put into the stretcher. “I knocked my head against the gun when the Jap crashed into my plane… Goddamn, I was scared shitless when I knew he’d hit me.” Then looking up at Jacob and Yancy, he managed a smile and said, “Thanks, guys. Thanks. I wouldn’t have gotten out alone.”
The corpsmen lifted the stretcher and quickly carried the man into the sick bay.
Side by side, Jacob and Yancy walked back toward the ready room.
“I was about to tell you, my guns jammed,” Jacob said, looking at the man.
Yancy grinned. “Jew boy, I should have known. You got balls, I’ll say that for ya.”
“So do you, Reb,” Jacob answered. “So do you.”
CHAPTER 26
Admiral Troost was on the bridge of the Albany. The heavy cruiser Brockton was on the starboard, the Williamsburg was on the port side and the destroyer Emmens was 1000 yards in front of the three cruisers. Their mission was to bombard the island of Wotje. Fighter bombers from the Big E had raided it earlier to suppress counter air attack and, even before the island came into view, the black smoke from the still burning fires hung over the island.
“Admiral, my aircraft reports no visible sign of shore batteries or air activity,” Captain Hasse, skipper of the Albany, repeated over the navigation squawk box as the information was radioed from one of its scout seaplanes.
“Signal the Emmens to move to within 5000 yards,” Troost, on his bridge, said, turning to his watch officer.
The WO relayed the order by phone to the signal bridge.
Troost raised his glasses and watched the Emmens execute his order. This combined air and shore bombardment operation on the Gilbert and Marshall Islands had been suggested from Washington by Admiral King, now COMINCH, the most senior man in the navy, to Admiral Nimitz, who had become CinPacFlt. Despite the losses at Pearl Harbor, King was very anxious to take the offensive in the Pacific. The idea submitted by his staff on January 2 was hotly debated in Washington and Pearl before it was finally deemed feasible.
One of the flag bridge phones rang.
Troost’s watch officer took it. “Emmens is at 5000 yards… Reports no hostile fire… Several large craft in the lagoon.”
“How far are we from the island?” Troost asked.
“14,000 yards,” the watch officer answered.
“Tell the Emmens to remain at her present position,” Troost said. “We’ll join her and the four of us will move to 5000 yards to begin our bombardment.”
The WO relayed the message.
“At least we won’t have return fire,” Troost observed, continuing to scan the island with his glasses; then looking at his watch officer, he said, “Put a signal in the air from me to all ships to stand by to form a column: the Emmens in the van, followed by this ship, then the Brockton and the Williamsburg… Emmens will guide… Speed 25 knots… Standard interval… Let me know when they have two-blocked their hoists.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the WO answered, picking up the phone to the signal bridge.
Addressing himself to the bridge watch in general, Troost said, “We’ll pass the island from south to north firing to port, reverse course, and fire from starboard as we run south.” Then going to the squawk box, he asked, “Captain Hasse, what do you make the range?”
“Fire Control makes it 8000 yards,” Hasse answered and added, “I understand the flag hoists in the air.”
Troost nodded. The damage from the air strikes was becoming clear. Several buildings were on fire and two ships in the lagoon were burning.
After being advised that all of the ships understood the hoisted signals, Troost said, “Execute the signals now flying.” In a matter of minutes he would order the captains of the individual ships to fire at will and it would be up to them and their gunnery officers to carry out the bombardment.
“Column formed, sir,” the watch officer reported.
Troost scanned the shoreline with his glasses. He glanced at the clock on the rear bulkhead of the bridge.
“Range 5000 yards,” a staff member at the flag bridge radarscope called out.
Troost glanced at the clock. As the clock’s second hand touched 12, Troost picked up the radio microphone and, breaking radio silence, transmitted over the primary tactical circuit. “This is Red Rover, all ships of this task group commence firing at will.” He moved to the chart table and looked down at a map of the island. Given its length, the ships would be able to fire effectively for five minutes. Then —
The silence on the bridge was broken as the Emmens commenced firing. Three rounds from her five-inch gun mounts burst beyond the beach, raising a sudden curtain of white sand into the air. She continued firing.
The Albany’s eight-inch gun turrets commenced firing. The thunder of the salvos was deafening, and the recoil sent a shudder throu
gh the ship. The Brockton and Williamsburg opened up.
Even with cotton in his ears, Troost found the noise deafening.
Fires sprung up ashore and in the lagoon. New plumes of smoke pushed into the sky.
Suddenly the watch officer pointed to the beach and shouted, “Look, Admiral, counter fire!”
There were red flashes on the shoreline. The Japanese had skillfully camouflaged three shore batteries.
The Emmens took a hit in her stern and a fire flared up.
The tactical radio circuit came alive with the Emmens reporting she was having rudder control problems. Moments later she reported, “I have dead and wounded. Damage control —”
A shell came screaming toward the Albany and slammed into the port side just below the navigation bridge. A tremendous explosion tore away the port side of Basse’s bridge.
Troost couldn’t raise Hasse on the squawk box and rushed down the ladder to the captain’s bridge. Blood and debris were everywhere. Hasse and the chief quartermaster were lying on the deck.
“Get a doctor and some corpsmen up here on the double,” Troost shouted; then turning to the helmsman, he asked, “Do you have rudder control?”
“Yes, sir,” the dazed man answered.
Troost turned to the shaken OOD. “Hold your course and speed,” he ordered. “Inform your executive officer to take command.”
The guns from the three cruisers continued to pour salvos into the shore batteries.
Suddenly there were two huge explosions on the beach and the shore batteries fell silent.
Less than four minutes had passed since the firing began.
“Admiral, the Emmens reports she has regained rudder control,” the squawk box from the flag bridge blared, “and can continue as guide. Damage is not severe.”
Troost suddenly realized that the doctor and the corpsmen were attending to the bridge casualties. He picked up the PRITAC microphone. “This is Red Rover,” he said. “Cease firing… Cease firing!”
A sudden silence fell over the sea.