Wounded Tiger

by T Martin Bennett

  “Admiral,” Fuchida said, “I agree that we have been more than successful in what we have been attempting to accomplish. I’m sorry I must say this, but I see a big problem here.”

  Nagumo raised an eyebrow.

  “The Americans remain our number one enemy, but we’re spending our valuable time and resources on the southern operation while leaving other resources completely unused.” He momentarily leaned on Nagumo’s desktop. “What’s the difference between their sunken battleships on the bottom of the Pearl Harbor, and our anchored battleships at Hiroshima Bay?”

  Fuchida pushed off the desk and stood upright. “Respectfully, admiral, I don’t think they’re being properly utilized. I believe we should be attacking our real enemy, the United States,” he said as he pointed east.

  Nagumo calmly leaned forward and tapped off the ashes of his cigar. “You know that the southern operation is essential to secure resources for our empire. All the commanders are in agreement on this. Our Zeroes are unmatched in the skies, our torpedo bombers can dispatch capital ships in minutes, and the confidence and experience of our men are without equal. We have nothing to be afraid of, and I’m surprised that you would doubt our strength.”

  “Admiral, I don’t doubt our power. Our men have performed superbly, but if we fail to destroy the American carriers while they have even the least ability to fight, they’ll have hope. That hope must be destroyed. I believe we must go east as soon as possible.” Fuchida glanced out through a porthole. “Even as we speak, the Americans are gathering strength.”

  Part III

  The Eagle’s Talons

  Chapter 39

  April 12, 1942. USS Hornet. The Pacific Ocean.

  “Gimme two,” Jake said. With his sleeves rolled up and a cigarette dangling from his lips, Jake snapped down two cards onto the table of a four man poker game scattered with red, yellow, blue, and white poker chips. The sun beamed in through the smoke filled room of pilots and sailors killing time.

  The dealer had a pack of cigarettes rolled up into the sleeve of his t-shirt. He squinted and flicked two cards which Jake snatched up.

  “Those weren’t the two I was thinking of.”

  Whistling Green Eyes again, Bill walked up behind Jake and shook his head as Jake looked back abruptly.

  “Now don’t go letting everyone know how bad my hand is. I’m gonna bluff, all right?”

  “Perfect.” Bill put his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Any of you boys gonna join us upstairs in a bit for the chapel service?”

  Great, Jake thought. We got a holy Joe in the poker room. Jake liked Bill, all right, but he had to draw the line somewhere. No one moved. The dealer spun out three cards to another player. Jake didn’t look back. “I’m here to kill Japs and maybe make a couple of bucks along the way, but, ah, put in a good word for me. I could use some help right about now.”

  “Sure. I understand.” Bill smiled to the players with a nod and a grin. “See you guys at dinner.”

  “Well, make your bet!” Jake said.

  Chapter 40

  April 12, 1942. Downtown Nagoya, Japan.

  Evening patrons crowded the popular restaurant of Nagoya, dimly lit by white hanging paper lanterns, but Amayo, a young lady of nineteen, could see no one but her fiancé across the table where they knelt. Her red and white kimono complimented her dark red lipstick and fair skin. As Kenji tried to quietly slurp his noodles, Amayo glanced around embarrassingly, then looked back into Kenji’s eyes while trying to hold back her smile.

  He set down his bowl and chopsticks and picked up his tea. “Three more months.”

  “Three months,” she said. They gazed at each other half smiling as only young lovers can do. “I’ve never known time to go so slowly.” Amayo picked up a piece of tempura with her chopsticks. She was relieved they could be together unaccompanied by family and savored the moment, but was getting impatient.

  “Is your grandfather able to come to the wedding?”

  “He says he will. I’m so happy he’s able to come. It’s a long trip for him and he hasn’t been well.”

  Kenji cast his eyes around cautiously, then reached out and placed his hand on top of Amayo’s. “If you’re happy, I’m happy.”

  April 18, 1942. Nagoya.

  With a lunch can slung over a shoulder, Kenji trudged down the narrow, wood-paved alley in the early morning wearing white coveralls, a pair of leather gloves tucked in his belt. Coming to a doorway, he glanced around and quietly tapped on the wooden doorframe and whispered, “Amayo?” He listened for an answer. “Amayo.” He turned his head as a man rode by on a rickety bicycle with a bundle on his back.

  On the matted floor inside her room, Amayo rolled over, sleeping soundly.

  Kenji peered down at his watch, looked around, then knocked on the frame again, this time harder. “Amayo. I’ve got to go to work. I’ll see you tonight.”

  With her eyes barely open, Amayo stared for a few seconds, then realized that what she thought she was only half dreaming wasn’t a dream.

  She grabbed her kimono and threw it on, slid her bedroom door open, and quickly tip-toed to the front door to not wake her parents. Creaking it open, to her surprise, no one was there but an old woman walking by with a basket of vegetables. She leaned out further and looked up and down the alley both ways. Her long, black hair fell across her face as her eyes drifted toward the ground. She couldn’t believe she’d missed him.

  As she receded into the house, a gleam of red caught her eye. Catching the sunlight was a red origami crane with her name written on it squeezed into the edge of the doorframe. Carefully plucking it out, she looked back down the empty street with a smile. “Thank you, Kenji,” she said.

  Chapter 41

  April 18, 1942. The Pacific Ocean 700 miles east of Japan.

  The massive USS Hornet turned into the drizzling wind and powered up to full speed, rising and falling on the churning, white-capped seas as sixteen B-25 bombers waited in launch position with their engines rumbling. In the #1 plane sat Jimmy Doolittle and his crew. The eyes of every sailor in the overloaded tower and on the packed deck stared intently as he went through the last check of his ailerons, rudder, and elevator.

  Jake stood with his crew as apprehensive as the rest, his mouth hanging open a bit. Doolittle had the shortest runway distance because of the 15 bombers behind him – leaving him exactly 467 feet, which was less than half the distance the plane was designed to need to get airborne. Every plane had been modified for the mission with three extra fuel tanks and given ten five-gallon cans of gas, nearly doubling the range, but also adding two tons to the total weight – putting it right at the very limits of still being able to fly. At least that was the calculated assumption. Instead of three football fields of length to get into the sky, they had one and a half.

  Every time Bill, Bob, and Jake had paced off the length of the runway in the preceding days, Bill kept shaking his head. If you didn’t get airborne by the end, you’d just fall into the sea. Probably upside down.

  Jake leaned to Bill and shouted over the drone of the engines. “Well, if he can’t make it, no one can.” The entire mission hinged on this one plane successfully making it into the air.

  “He’s Doolittle. He’ll make it,” Bill shouted back.

  While holding the brakes, Doolittle revved up both engines full throttle shaking the wingtips, waiting for the right timing to the rise and fall of the ship. The flagman dropped his checkered flag, the engineer yanked the wheel chocks, and Doolittle released his B-25, roaring down the runway into the misty headwind. Jake clenched his fists on the opening of his jacket. The plane approached the end of the deck ... and dropped, then struggled into the air. The crew broke into ecstatic cheers, flapping of their hats in the air as flight teams began scrambling to their own aircraft.

  Doolittle’s plan was to launch the aircraft 400 nautical miles off the coast of Japan in the early evening hours of the 19th for a night raid, but the discovery of a Japanese fishing bo
at, suspected of being part of an early warning radio picket line, forced the immediate launch of all planes from over 700 miles out a day early. The Japanese vessel was quickly blown out of the water by the cruiser USS Nashville, but not before it had apparently sent out a radio signal that the Americans picked up. From this launching location, it would be impossible for any of the aircraft to reach their designated landing points in China. They’d also be attacking in broad daylight and, if the radio signal from the fishing boat was received in Tokyo, the Japanese military might well be waiting and fully prepared for the meager attack of sixteen unescorted bombers. The entire operation was now in jeopardy of being a complete disaster.

  The #2 plane inched into position as other engines revved into roars behind him. The flagman waved the next plane off down the runway as Bill Farrow, in the #16 position, warmed up the engines of the Bat Out of Hell. A sudden gust of wind whipped into the plane, lifting the nose in the air and tipping the back down toward the water. Jake dropped his bag and lunged for the nose wheel and grabbed hold with a group of sailors who fought to bring the bucking animal under control. Others furiously grabbed ropes under the wings. The front wheel slammed down to the deck.

  To Jake, things were looking like they could have been a disaster before they even left. His heart was pounding. Their plane nearly tumbled backwards into the sea.

  As the #15 plane in front of them, TNT, revved up to move forward, the blast of air knocked a sailor behind the plane off balance. Bill watched in horror from his pilot’s seat and screamed through his open window, “Look out!” The sailor slid on the wet deck into their left propeller, instantly severing his left arm and flinging him to the deck. Jake and three others bolted over and carried him off to the side while pressing a jacket onto his bleeding shoulder. Stunned but conscious, the sailor gazed up at Jake with his striking blue eyes, blood oozing onto the rain soaked deck. “Give ‘em hell, Jake. Do it for me, will ya?”

  “You got it, pal.” He would never forget those crystal blue eyes. Never.

  “Get moving number sixteen!” a crewman yelled. Jake ran back to his plane, threw his bag up into the hatch, climbed aboard, and pulled the hatch shut. Inside, the roar of the engines was nearly as loud as outside. Bill taxied forward as Jake shimmied on his belly through a narrow passageway to his nose position. Crawling out of the square tube, he was greeted by a gust of wet wind coming in through a jagged, foot-wide hole in the Plexiglas just to the right of his machine gun. “Hell no!” He stared.

  It must have happened during the confusion when the plane was being thrown around by the wind, he figured, and somehow grazed the tail of the plane ahead of them. This could make for a miserable thirteen-hour flight and could even jeopardize their mission as the added drag could cut down their range.

  Jake yanked on his headset and strapped his throat microphone around his neck to notify Bill while the plane inched forward. Maybe they just shouldn’t go. He watched the wet wooden deck planking roll before him through his nose windshield then glanced at the rows of eyes outside fixed on his plane. Some men gave him a “thumbs up.” There were only seconds for him to decide. Telling Bill about the gaping hole in the nose could easily get the mission scrubbed, a mission he still wasn’t completely sure about.

  He put his hand on his throat microphone and blinked a few times as he watched the flagman motioning the plane into takeoff position. The plane came to a halt as the engines began to ramp up. Jake swallowed hard, then shoved his arms into the seat harness and buckled in.

  With the flagman’s release and the plane throttling up to full power, the acceleration pressed Jake into his seat with deafening vibrations. The runway sped past him and disappeared into the ocean below and the plane climbed and banked wide left, circling to join two other planes in their group of three. Jake looked down to see the ships turning in unison toward the west, giving him a chill with a new thought – the next safe place they could land was 2,400 miles away and everyone knew there was little chance anyone was going to make it.

  Having their bearings, the plane dropped to a height of a hundred feet above the ocean to duck under any possible enemy radar. When Jake told Bill about the hole, he sent the co-pilot, Bob to shimmy up front to see if he could help fix it. He and Jake tried plugging it with a jacket but it just kept blowing in. Eventually the drag made them drop behind of the two other B-25s in their formation and they eventually lost sight of them. They were alone over the Pacific.

  About an hour in, Bill broke the “silence” of the head-numbing drone of the two 14 cylinder Wright R-2600 engines. “Hey, Jake,” Bill shouted over his headset.

  “Yeah?”

  “That fella who fell into the prop. You know him?”

  Jake glanced to his left at the whirring propeller, spinning only a few inches from the fuselage, then at the endless horizon of the ocean through his windshield. “Bob. Bob Wall. He beat me out of twenty-seven bucks.”

  Bill looked at his co-pilot who shook his head. “That’s a cryin’ shame. Hope he pulls through.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. Just hope all the worst is behind us, now.” Keeping his headset on to dull the oppressive drone, Jake pulled his jacket over his chest, kicked up his feet, wedged his head into the corner, and sighed as the wind rushed around him. One thing was certain, there was no turning back.

  Chapter 42

  April 18, 1942. The open seas, southwest of Japan. The aircraft carrier Akagi.

  Fuchida sat alone in the flight personnel standby room flipping through an aircraft parts folder when an orderly barged in.

  “Sir, Commander Genda requests you immediately in the operations room!”

  Arriving at the room he saw Genda, Vice Admiral Nagumo, and a number of officers hunched over the map table. “What’s going on?”

  Genda looked up at Fuchida with a smile and handed him a report. “Well, Fuchi, they’ve come at last!” He took a triumphant puff of his cigarette.

  Fuchida snatched the paper of the last transmissions of the patrol boat Nitto Maru:

  06:30 Sighted what appear to be 3 enemy carrier-borne aircraft

  06:45 Sighted 1 enemy carrier

  06:50 Sighted 3 enemy carriers

  07:30 Large enemy formation

  A chill of joy and fear ran through his body as he took it in – the Americans were going to attack Japan. It seemed unbelievable. So early in the war, the Americans were setting out to attack? They would be squashed in a textbook battle, just like his instructors had predicted. The chance to destroy the American carriers exhilarated him. This is our real enemy – The U.S. Navy.

  “The patrol boat hasn’t been heard from since,” Genda said, “but theymanaged to let us know of the approach of the Americans and their location. Headquarters has ordered Tactical Method Number Three.” Genda paused. “We’re to intercept and engage the enemy.”

  Genda turned back down to the map as Fuchida squeezed into the group.

  Nagumo thumped his finger just between Formosa12 and the Philippines. “Here. We are right here.” He slid his hand to the right of Japan out into the open ocean and thumped his finger again. “And here is where the formation was spotted.” He removed his hand, stood upright and looked at Fuchida. “Six hundred fifty miles away. This is just what we had hoped for.”

  Fuchida smiled. “And they’ll need to be within three hundred miles of Japan before they can even begin to launch aircraft for an attack. That’ll leave us with about a day to meet them head to head.” He squinted with skepticism. “Such a small force. What could they possibly hope to accomplish?”

  Nagumo grinned. “Admiral Yamamoto has ordered the carriers Soryu and Hiryu to speed to the coast to as well. We’ll have our air defense on full alert tomorrow and our carriers will be prepared to annihilate the Americans as soon as they arrive.” He turned back to Fuchida and clapped his hands together briskly. “We’ve got them right where we want them.”

  Chapter 43

  The Pacific Ocean, just east of Nagoya, Japa
n.

  George the navigator pored over his chart making measurements. He tapped the pilot in front of him. “Hey Bill, we should be seeing the coast soon.”

  “Roger that,” Bill said.

  Jake leaned forward in the nose straining to see. “Yeah, baby. There it is.”

  Bill asked, “Harry, you awake back there?”

  In his top Plexiglas gun turret Harry rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Keep your eyes peeled for Zeroes. We’re the last of the bunch. They gotta know we’re comin’.”

  Harry cocked each of his two machine guns. “I’m all eyes back here.” He studied the sky, unwrapped a piece of gum, and folded it into his mouth as the pilot brought the plane up to 1,500 feet for their bombing run.

  Kenji stepped through an array of parallel pipes beside a row of six, huge white cylindrical tanks – each forty feet tall. Two nearby workers in white gripped a large, steel valve wheel.

  “Turn the first valve three revolutions to the left,” Kenji said while pointing, “then wait for about five seconds.” He watched and waited while the workers turned the wheel and looked back at Kenji. “That’s right. Now do the same for the second.”

  Another worker called out from fifty feet away. “Kenji! Come look at this control box!”

  “I’ll be right back,” he said as he pulled off his gloves.

  Jake’s plane roared over houses and buildings, startling the people in the streets who looked up.

  Bill yelled over the intercom, “Comin’ up Jake! The refinery!”

  Jake pushed hard on the lever in the floor to open the bomb bay doors, flipped a toggle switch on the control panel from “Safe” to “Arm,” then shut one eye as he took aim down the bombsight and watched the target gradually come into view through his Plexiglas nose. The simple, hand-made sights were made especially for this one, low-level mission.