by Peter Albano
Streaking at least a hundred fifty knots more than his enemy, Yoshi bored in below and to the right of the Constellation, avoiding the deadly Gatling on the port side. With the stick pulled back into his stomach, the fighter rocketed up and under the starboard wing of the lumbering giant and slightly ahead of it.
Hanging on his prop with the Sakae screaming with the strain, Yoshi risked a stall and moved the glowing reticle to the two starboard engines, boring in so close he could see the copilot’s wide-eyed white face staring at him out of the cockpit’s side window, a dead gunner with no legs hanging out the starboard door and flopping in the wind, held by his safety harness like a red-and-brown pennant, his severed arteries spilling a red haze into the slipstream. Matsuhara was so close, the engine nacelles streaked black from exhaust not only filled the gunsight but the antiglare gunsight screen as well. It was zero deflection and point-blank. Seesawing his rudder pedals gently, he moved the nose of the fighter back and forth like a hunter tracking a game bird and sprayed the right wing. The burst blew the cowling and hood from the number-three engine exposing the two rows of cylinder heads of the huge radial engine, turbo-charger, the bulging Power Recovery Turbine, and fuel and hydraulic lines. Severed lines streamed red fluid like the gunner’s blood, and a hole in the recovery turbine spouted hot exhaust gases like an old locomotive puffing up a hill. More shells punched into the wing tank, blew the cover off the right main wheel well, shot off the flap hinges causing the flap to rip free and dangle from its control linkage, ripped off big chunks of skin exposing the main spar, formers, ribs, and color-coded control lines. The big transport staggered and dipped erratically but thundered on.
Despite Yoshi’s pleas to Amaterasu, the Zero would take no more. Standing on its tail with its airspeed nearly zero, the Sakae screamed in agony like an animal caught in a steel trap, the airframe yawed and shook as if it were trying to shake itself to pieces like a wet dog, and the fighter began to fall off on its right side, pulled by the Sakae’s weight and torque. Stick-horsed forward and sharp right rudder followed by a correcting kick of left rudder turned the embryonic spin into a spiraling dive. Picking up airspeed, Yoshi looked into his rearview mirrors and then over his shoulder. He exulted joyfully and saliva ran down to his chin as he saw flame streak from the Constellation’s number-three engine and wing fuel tank. Shouting with joy, Yoshi pulled back on the stick and leveled off, banking toward the doomed Lockheed. He had used thirty-six rounds of twenty millimeter, fifty-eight rounds of 7.7 and had not even been scratched.
Circling and climbing back up to his wingmen, he watched the great plane fall off into a tight spin. Weakened by shell hits, the right wing bent up at its root like a piece of wet cardboard and then broke off completely, flopping grotesquely behind the stricken transport. Leaving a thick black column of greasy smoke and pulled to the left by its port wing, the big plane tumbled and gyrated wildly, no longer a graceful thing of the air but now a shattered, crumpled insect of monstrous proportions that had been swatted from the air and set aflame. With a huge splash and cloud of spray, it finally plunged into the Pacific while the wing twisted into the sea at least two kilometers to the south. Quickly the cold water covered the grave and only a long, thin shroud of black smoke remained as a marker. Then the wind ripped at the smoke and within seconds there was nothing left to mark the tomb.
High above, three Zeros sped off to the west.
*
From six thousand feet the island of Saipan looked like a wolf’s head, mouth spread wide in a mortal scream of agony. Approaching from the north astride the 145th meridian, Marpi Point first became visible to the crew of Tora II. Grim, high cliffs dropping off to seaswept rocks like dragon’s teeth gave the bluffs a murderous aspect. And, indeed, thousands of civilians and soldiers had shattered themselves on the rocks and drowned in the wild surf during the final days of the great battle for Saipan in 1944. Takii’s scratchy voice filled Brent’s earphones and the little pilot gestured over the combing. “A cemetery. I lost a brother there.” He seemed to be talking to himself. No one answered.
Banking to the west toward the wolf’s mouth, Magicienne Bay, details of the entire fourteen by five mile island became visible; Mount Tapotchau rising from the island’s center like a green sentinel, to the north and east the rolling hills and high plateaus ending abruptly in narrow coastal flats. But to the south and west Tapotchau flattened into a long coastal plain, fringed by inviting white beaches, protected by a great coral reef. It was here that Brent saw the towns of Garapan and Charan Kanoa. Strangely, there was no movement.
Takii’s voice again: “There, on the southwest beaches, that’s where the landings were made.” Brent looked at the lovely beaches and the protective reef and shuddered. There were three openings in the coral. They must have been zeroed in. Very expensive real estate, he thought.
Takii seemed to be reading his mind. “Thirty thousand Japanese troops and sailors died here, and most of the civilian population — over twenty thousand more — General Saito, Admiral Nagumo…”
Brent could not remain silent. “But thousands of Americans died, too.” He stabbed a finger at the island and his voice was hard. “My father was here and so was Admiral Allen. That place didn’t come cheap.”
The pilot’s voice was conciliatory. “I know, Brent-san. I did not mean to offend. It was a terrible tragedy — all for nothing. All those fine boys.”
Commander Yoshi Matsuhara’s voice calling “Iceman” interrupted the conversation. All three members of the bomber’s crew sat bolt upright as the report of the destruction of the Libyan Constellation poured through their earphones. There was no cheering. Instead, three pairs of eyes searched the skies even more anxiously. Takii said, “The Commonwealth of the northern Marianas maintains an airdrome on the southern end of Saipan and another on Tinian.”
The nearby island of Tinian was now clearly visible. In fact, even tiny Aguijan jutting from the sea off the southern toe of Tinian like the dot of Tinian’s exclamation mark could be seen. The storm was much closer, thunderheads looming high and hostile, tossing their monstrous, billowing heads to the sky and filling the entire southern horizon — a great black-and-gray promontory charged with lightning and crashing thunder. Its precursors, scudding gobs of cumulus like a rolling line of skirmishers, already flanked Aguijan. The air itself also seemed to have changed. It was charged with static that made Brent’s skin prickle and filled him with new unease and deep forebodings. He tightened his jaw and patted the breech of the Nambu.
As Takii banked the Nakajima to the west over the channel between Saipan and Tinian and away from the storm, Brent adjusted his glasses. Airstrips like Xs were visible on the southern end of Saipan and in the middle of Tinian, which was almost flat. Now Brent understood why Tinian had been a favorite of B-29 crews.
Takii’s voice: “Ensign Hayusa, are you monitoring your bands?”
“Yes, sir. No transmissions on channel eighteen or FM ten.”
“Not even citizens’ band?”
“Nothing, Lieutenant.”
“Continue your search.” Then to Brent, “You have the eyes of a hawk, Lieutenant Ross. See any parked fighters?”
Brent leaned over the combing with his glasses on Saipan. The place not only showed no movement at all, it looked dead, almost as if the thousands who had died with such great violence over four decades ago refused to let go, their troubled spirits overwhelming life with an aura of death. The young lieutenant shuddered, feeling a new cold, but this time not from the wind. He spoke into his microphone. “I don’t even see an airplane, Lieutenant Takii.”
Takii punched his instrument panel so hard the tachometer needle jumped a hundred revolutions. “Sacred Amaterasu, we need your help,” he muttered to himself. And then to Brent, “Something is wrong down there.”
“I agree. Nothing’s moving. Not even a car — no fishing boats.”
Brent saw a mound near the strip on Saipan. He leaned over the combing, stared with new concen
tration. Sandbags. Brush. He keyed his microphone. “Lieutenant Takii, I’ve spotted something — could be a camouflaged revetment.”
“Fighters! High and to the east — one-eight-zero!” Ensign Hayusa screamed, stabbing a finger at the sky.
Bringing up his glasses, Brent saw a frightening spectacle: a wedge of three Messerschmitt 109s rocketing at them from far to the east. Two tar-black fighters led by a blood-red machine that looked like the point of a lance just pulled from the guts of a dead foe. The red machine belonged to Oberstleutnant (Squadron Commander) Kenneth Rosencrance, leader of the Vierter Jagerstaffel (Fourth Fighter Squadron) mercenary, killer, and Kadafi’s leading ace. Brent knew the renegade well — had been amazed at the man’s arrogance and courage when Rosencrance became Yonaga’s prisoner after Yoshi Matsuhara shot him down over Tokyo. Virulently anti-Semitic, the man had the soul of a cobra and the instincts of a shark. It was rumored the Arabs paid him one million a year American plus fifty thousand dollars for each kill. Rosencrance had snickered to Brent, “If I bust enough Kike and Jap ass, I’ll be a millionaire before this is over, ol’ buddy. I’ll buy San Simeon, Hearst’s old pad, get me some young pussy, and fuck and booze myself to death.”
It was instant hatred. Brent wanted to kill the big American with his bare hands. Had almost done as much in Yonaga’s sick bay after Rosencrance had nearly beaten the wounded Taku Ishikawa to death. But Commander Tashiro Okuma had stopped the insensate Brent Ross before he could deliver the coup de grace with a pair of surgical scissors. Then the kidnapping of Prince Akihito, the exchange that led to the release of Rosencrance. Rosencrance’s last words were a vow to kill Brent, a pay back for the beating. “I was wounded, you chicken-shit son-of-a-bitch,” the burly American shouted as he left. “Someday I’ll square it.”
“Be my guest,” Brent had snorted. But now Kenneth Rosencrance had his chance and all of the marbles. As Brent brought the machine gun to bear he heard Ensign Takashiro Hayusa calling frantically, “Iceman, Iceman, this is Shonendan (Scout) Two a thousand meters over the island of Saipan. Three enemy fighters closing high and to the east.”
“I read you, Shonendan Two.” Then to Brent’s joy Yonaga’s call to Yoshi Matsuhara: “Edo Leader, Edo Leader, this is Iceman.”
Brent heard Yoshi’s strong voice acknowledge. Then Yonaga’s fighter-control officer continued, “Enemy fighters have intercepted Shonendan Two over the island of Saipan. Engage! Engage! Your vector two-three-zero.”
“Roger and out.”
The cold, dispassionate tones of the control officer and Yoshi Matsuhara, like men ordering lunch, maddened Brent. “Jesus Christ, Yoshi. Hurry! Hurry! I’m going to get my ass shot off.”
Brent felt himself thrown violently to the side of the cockpit as Takii banked sharply to the south and headed toward the storm, stick forward, the big plane in a dive, engine at full military power. The old pilot was doing all he could: bring Tora low to the water and let the ocean protect her belly and take his chances with the storm — if the enemy did not kill him first.
With the precision of a trained group of acrobats, the three MEs banked gracefully into a wide, sweeping turn and swooped down on the Nakajima’s tail. Then they split into three petals like the bloom of a poisonous flower; Rosencrance almost into a vertical climb and the two black machines veering to the right and left. Brent felt the hair on his forearms and neck come erect, each follicle freezing and tingling, and his bowels seemed to drop out of his body. Unable to swallow because of a rock lodged in his throat, he steadied his hands and brought the right-hand ME into the first ring of his large ringsight. He cursed. They had made him choose. And, no doubt, the Arabs would attack simultaneously from both sides and with far greater firepower.
Rosencrance was high above, staring down like an amused spectator. Then Brent was anguished as a new thought grated through his mind: They’re using us for practice. A target. Sharpening up some new men. He bent his long legs until they ached, squatting low, set his jaw, and was suddenly filled with a new calm. He had shot down a DC-3 over the Mediterranean and a fighter over Korea with the same gun and the same pilot. He was considered a gifted gunner with an instinctive sense for the maddening multi-dimensional gunnery problems of aerial combat. Anticipation, an inherent grasp of deflection and steadiness were all qualities Brent Ross possessed. He waited as the ME grew in his sights.
Now he could see the aircraft was not all black; the spinner gleaming white with the fearsome muzzle of the engine-mounted twenty-millimeter gun protruding. The sun glared from the flat gunsight screen and, as the Messerschmitt closed at a speed that exceeded the bomber’s by at least a hundred knots, even small details became clear: the exhaust manifold fairing strip, oil cooler intake under the fuselage like a double chin, the non-retracting tail wheel, the D/F loop just back of the cockpit, the Libyan markings on each squared-off wing and fuselage, the muzzles of the two cowling mounted Borsig thirteen-millimeter machine guns. Now he could see the pilot, a goggled black lump, rigid and fixed behind his range finder as much a part of the aircraft as the Daimler Benz engine, the aerial mast, the guns. Not a man at all, but a machine whose only function was to kill him.
Now he realized the two black machines were not in precise sync — the right ME at least a quarter mile ahead of the left. Either they were new, careless, or so supremely confident they intended to take target practice individually. But it was a mistake. They had given their enemy a slight advantage. He would grab it.
He felt the bomber flatten, bounce skyward, and then down again as they skimmed the sea parallel to the east coast of Tinian. A quick glance downward and he saw the sun-and shadow-dappled water blurring past only a few feet beneath him — so close their propeller threw up a fine plume of spray; so close their backwash left a flattened, rippling wake behind them. The chop was clear, white froth on a deep reddish-black sea like a turgid mass of dark blood, showing great depth even this close to shore. He glanced at a chart fastened to the bulkhead. He found ME 109 — First ring eight hundred yards, Second ring five hundred yards, Third ring two hundred yards. He would force himself to wait until the enemy filled the three rings. The young gunner set his jaw and tightened his trigger finger.
While his companion lagged farther behind and gradually climbed to get a better view of the sport, the attacking Messerschmitt banked gracefully to its right and closed the range slowly. He’s throttled back, Brent thought. The son-of-a-bitch is really confident-thinks we’re easy meat. He’ll try for a zero-deflection shot. The propeller boss and then the ME’s cowling began to wink red at him. A swarm of fire beads smoked toward him, at first coming quite slowly but accelerating miraculously as they closed. Violently he was thrown to his left as Takii banked sharply to the right and headed the big plane for the cliffs of Tinian’s southeast coast. Fooled by the maneuver, the Arab’s tracers dropped off harmlessly.
The enemy pilot corrected quickly, gunned his engine, and slashed in above the Nakajima’s port elevator, all of his armament blazing. He filled two rings.
Brent’s aiming point was the orange-red flashes of the engine-mounted twenty-millimeter gun. He held fire until the wing tips of the ME stretched far enough to form a diameter of the outer circle of his range finder. Two hundred yards. It seemed time slowed for Brent and his vision suddenly intensified to brilliant clarity. Holding his breath and with his lips pulled back in a rictus of determination, he forced himself to caress the trigger gently, taking up the slack until he felt the resistance of the trigger spring. Then the hard, even pull through the spring and the Nambu came alive, kicking, chattering, sending a stream of smoking tracers into the bull’s eyes of the enemy’s propeller. Bright yellow strikes erupted on the Libyan’s cowling and spinner, ricochets flung from the propeller like sparks from a pinwheel.
Shocked and panicked by Brent’s accuracy, the Arab rocketed the ME to the right, crossing the Nakajima’s tail. And then back directly behind the bomber, firing now in short bursts, trying to confuse Brent’s ai
m with the B5M’s rudder. He was clever and brave — too courageous to be an Arab. Probably a German or Russian. Holes appeared miraculously in the Nakajima’s right wing. With his own tail assembly in his sights, Brent released the trigger and shouted into his microphone as more tracers burned past, “The rudder — he’s directly astern. Give me a shot, Takii!”
The plea was unnecessary. Takii, watching carefully in his rearview mirrors and anticipating the Arab’s tactics, had already begun to bank to the left, giving Brent a shot free of the rudder. Brent squeezed off two short bursts, saw paint and bits of metal kicked loose by small fire motes of bright yellow strikes as his slugs ripped into the ME’s cowling. The ME banked away and then began curving back again.
At the instant the bomber bounced up and over the cliffs of Tinian’s coastline riding upward on the cap of a thermal Sinian’s radiating from the hot, rock-hard surface, the 109 began another run high above their right rudder and this time his aim was better, the Nakajima rising in his sights. Bang! Bang! Bang! The bomber vibrated as thirteen-millimeter bullets shot off the geared rudder tab and tail wheel leg cuff, exploded the rear navigation light and plucked at the fuselage just behind Brent’s cockpit, leaving halos of bright bare metal around the rents in the aluminum.
Brent heard his pilot cursing as he fought the change in the bomber’s trim and managed to bring the cowling down again. Takii’s voice: “He will pass over us. You will have his belly.” Brent wondered how the pilot could know so much, prophesy the enemy’s moves. Then he was thrown forward as Takii cracked the flaps full down, cut throttle, and jammed his pitch-control lever to full forward, turning the Sumitomo propeller into a brake.
The Messerschmitt loomed so close Brent was seized by a panic when it appeared the three blades of the big VDM constant-speed propeller would chew into their tail. Frantically, the enemy pilot pulled back on his stick and banked to his right. Brent had his belly. Lips skinned into a hungry leer, the big American filled his sights with the ME’s underbelly. Judging his deflection perfectly, he pulled the trigger, sending a long burst that caught the ME just behind its spinner backplate and forward of the big scooplike oil cooler intake. As the fighter passed and banked away, Brent held the trigger down and let his enemy fly through the murderous stream, swinging the gun with his target so that his tracer stream stitched through his enemy from hub to tail wheel.