1942

CHAPTER 11

Admiral Raymond Spruance glanced up at the interruption and smiled tolerantly. “Gentlemen, now that we are all here, we can begin.”

Lieutenant Jamie Priest winced and took a seat at the end of the long table. Even though Spruance seemed to be a pretty easygoing and regular guy, it did not behoove junior officers to piss off admirals by being late for meetings, no matter what the reason.

Nor was Spruance the only admiral at this meeting. Rear Admiral Charles A. Lockwood was present. Lockwood commanded the American submarine forces in the Pacific, and his presence at the meeting was a surprise to Jamie as he was supposed to be in Australia. Lockwood, a belligerent man on the best of days, looked angry and glared at Jamie, probably because Jamie didn’t wear the insignia of a submarine officer.

Next in rank was a Captain Winters, and Jamie knew nothing about him. Nor did he know about a Lieutenant Fargo, who wore the badge of a submariner and who looked at Jamie with an expression that asked: Why the hell are we all here? A young but thin and plain-looking civilian woman with glasses was present to take notes.

“Gentlemen,” Spruance began, “this is an informal meeting to discuss the situation with our submarines and our torpedoes. Our discussions will be preliminary, anecdotal, and nonscientific. All of you are here because you have had unique experiences that may help shed some light on the problem. For that reason, I want this discussion to be free from any concerns about rank.”

Jamie wondered just how freely junior officers could actually speak in front of seniors. Unfortunately, he felt he was going to find out fairly shortly.

Spruance continued. “Admiral Lockwood is here because he commands our subs. Captain Winters is here because, as an engineer with the Bureau of Ordnance, he helped design and build the Mark 14 torpedo. Lieutenant Fargo is here because his sub, the Monkfish, unsuccessfully used Mark 14s to attack a Jap destroyer with results that were almost tragic. Lieutenant Priest is here because, as an officer on the Pennsylvania, he saw the other side of the coin. That is, he saw Japanese torpedoes at work, and there are few around who can lay claim to that dubious honor.”

Jamie flushed as the others looked at him with expressions ranging from surprise to respect. Even Lockwood stopped glaring at him.

“Lieutenant Priest is now a member of our staff,” Spruance added, and Jamie noticed that the young woman had looked up from her reading glasses and smiled tentatively at him. The smile made her look far more attractive than he’d first thought.

The mention of Japanese torpedoes brought forth several frank comments. Spruance, Lockwood, and Winters all admitted that at first they had doubted the range and speed of the Jap torpedoes and felt that the Pennsylvania and her escorts had been hit by an enemy sub that had actually been much closer than the Japanese surface ships. Jamie admitted he’d had his doubts as well.

“But now we know better,” Spruance said. “The Japs have a torpedo they fire from surface vessels. It’s called the ‘Long Lance’ and with good reason. It has a range of more than ten miles compared with the Mark 14’s two and a quarter, and leaves no wake, which means it’s oxygen-powered. I might add that it has a helluva lot greater hitting power than ours as well.”

“It also works,” Lockwood snapped, which earned him a glare from Winters. “There’s a smaller version for their subs that is also better than the Mark 14.”

Spruance gestured for peace. “We know we have a problem. What Admiral King, Admiral Nimitz, and I want is a solution, or at least the beginning of a solution. Gentlemen, there are very few submarine targets in the Atlantic; therefore the bulk of our torpedo targets will be here in the Pacific. This is our problem, and we must move to solve it.”

Spruance reprised the situation as he understood it. Torpedoes were being fired at Japanese shipping, but many of them were either malfunctioning or missing. No one was entirely certain which. He then invited Captain Winters to describe the torpedo.

Winters had the no-nonsense look of an engineer, and he also seemed put out that the worth of the Mark 14 torpedo was being questioned. “We built the best torpedo in the world,” he said firmly.

“At least until the Japs showed up with theirs,” Lockwood interjected.

Less subjectively, Winters went on to describe the Mark 14. It had a magnetic trigger that was designed to explode when it was affected by the earth’s magnetic field as a ship passed overhead. The torpedoes were to be set at depths that would ensure this would occur. When it worked, the explosion would break a ship’s keel and sink her more efficiently than a contact torpedo.

The Mark 14 could also be used as an impact torpedo. It had a sophisticated detonator that was supposed to explode the torpedo when it hit an enemy’s hull.

Problem was, as Admiral Lockwood growled, it didn’t work out that way. He turned the floor over to Lieutenant Fargo, who described the Monkfish’s attack on the Japanese destroyer.

“Our new commanding officer, Commander Griddle, was an experienced submariner. The targeting was good, but not one of our four torpedoes hit. As directed, they were all set to run under a target, and we believe they did. But not one exploded.”

Winters shook his head in disbelief. “First of all, four is far too many for one target. You just cannot fire torpedoes so wastefully. Second, you must have done something wrong. I would like to talk to Mr. Griddle.”

“He’s in a San Francisco hospital,” Fargo said stiffly. “He lost one eye during the depth charge attack that took place right after we missed, and may lose the other. As to what we did, I double-checked everything that Commander Griddle ordered, and while he was doing it. I even saw the destroyer through the periscope and confirmed range, course, and targeting plot. There were no mistakes. The torpedoes were set to detonate at the proper depth and they didn’t do it.”

“And this is just one incident out of many,” Lockwood said. “There are reports like this coming from all over the place.”

“I can only add,” Winters said, “that the torpedoes should be exploding. We’ve checked the ones remaining on the Monkfish, and there’s nothing wrong with them. Is it possible, Admiral Lockwood, either that your officers are not following regulations in the heat of battle or they don’t know enough about engineering?”

Fargo bristled. “Sir, we followed all directions. I would also add that, as a Naval Academy graduate, I have a damned solid knowledge of engineering.”

Lockwood leaned forward and glowered at Winters. “Look, I know everyone at BuOrd thinks my boys are a bunch of undisciplined, raggedy-assed pirates, but that’s not so! They’re brave, yes, even reckless, but they’re not stupid. Every one of them wants to make a kill and get his ass home in one piece.”

Jamie turned to see how the woman was taking the dialogue. She looked up at him, and he saw sadness in her eyes.

“We’re getting nowhere,” Spruance said with a touch of exasperation.

Now, Jamie thought. “Sir, may I ask a question of Captain Winters?”

“Of course.”

“Captain Winters, I was late for this meeting because of a phone call I got from a friend. He too worked on the Mark 14 and said something that disturbed me. Sir, was the Mark 14 ever live-fired with a warhead at a target?”

Winters nodded. “I know where you’re coming from, son. The Mark 14 was thoroughly tested.”

Jamie persisted. “With respect, sir, that isn’t what I asked. Was a live torpedo ever fired at a target ship, and, if so, what were the results?”

“I don’t want to bore you with the scientific details, but rest assured that the Mark 14 was thoroughly tested.”

Spruance stepped in, his curiosity piqued by Winters’s evasion. “Captain, answer the young man’s question. Yes or no?”

“To the best of my knowledge, perhaps once. Perhaps not at all.”

There were gasps of surprise, and Jamie thought that Lockwood’s jaw was going to hit the table as it dropped.

“Why not?” Spruance asked.

“Admiral, the Mark 14 is a very sophisticated and complex weapon. That translates into expensive. Each one of them costs ten thousand dollars, which is why I’m upset that four were fired at one small target. It’s unnecessary. To further answer your question, test firing was done with dummy warheads at targets in large pools. That way the torpedo could be recovered and used again. The torpedoes passed under dummy hulls and would have exploded had they contained warheads.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Lockwood said in disbelief. “You mean that no one ever saw one of these bastards explode on a target?”

“If you put it that way, that’s true. However, it was the opinion of BuOrd that test firing would be both expensive and redundant. The torpedo works.”

“Except when it doesn’t,” Lieutenant Fargo said with ill-concealed disbelief.

Spruance called for silence. “All right, here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll hold live-fire testing here and now.”

“I protest,” said Winters.

“Noted. Now, we have the Monkfish in port and she has a dozen Mark 14s left. Captain Winters, you will again confirm that the torpedoes are in working order and you will oversee their being fired at targets.”

Winters nodded sullenly.

“Lieutenant Priest, your job is to organize the shoot. Find a couple of relics we can tow out to sea and fire at, along with ships and planes for observation. I don’t think it’ll be necessary to fire all twelve of Lieutenant Fargo’s expensive torpedoes. Four strikes me as sufficient.”

“I’d like to fire a couple more to test the impact trigger,” Lockwood requested. “Remember, it doesn’t work too well either. Personally, I think it’s just too damned fragile.”

It looked like Winters was about to object, but then he thought better of it. His expression said he would get his day in court and was confident he’d be vindicated.

Spruance adjourned the meeting. As the group left the room, Jamie mentally began to organize his task. He was pondering when he felt a light tug on his sleeve. It was the stenographer. She was shorter than Jamie, thin, maybe an inch over five feet, and in her early twenties. “Hi. Sir, I’m Sue Dunnigan, and Admiral Spruance thought I might be able to help you with the clerical work on your project.”

“Great,” Jamie said with a grin that surprised him.

The process of informing California that he’d found Nevermore, also known as Commander Joe Rochefort, was elegant and simple. As directed, at eight in the evening Hawaii time, Jake radioed a single letter of the alphabet. It was A, which meant that Rochefort had been found and was well. Other letters meant different things. B would have meant that Jake and his soldiers were still looking, and C that they hadn’t a clue as to where Nevermore was. Still other letters would have indicated that Rochefort was injured and whether he could travel, while the letter X said he was dead.

P was the most dreaded signal. It meant that Joe Rochefort was in Japanese hands.

The one-letter signal was sent three times, at one-minute intervals. Jake wondered what would happen if the soldier entrusted to listening had gone to the can at that exact moment. He would know in just under two days, when he would receive an alphanumeric response that would give him further directions.

As a precaution, Jake had moved the radio several miles from what they now referred to as their base camp when he transmitted. It was considered extremely unlikely that the Japanese would be able to pick up such a quick message, and even less likely that they would be able to act on it, but no one wanted to take chances. They would, however, wait at the base camp for the return transmission as receiving the message was a passive action. The station in California could be broadcasting to the moon for all the Japanese would know.

Rochefort and his assistant, Holmes, spent most of their time up at his shack, listening, or doing whatever they did, and this left Jake time to work with his little army. He also interrogated the other sailors as to whether or not they were the only survivors of the sinking of the St. Louis. The cruiser could have had a complement of over a thousand men, and it seemed highly unlikely that only these eight had been spared.

Jake was able to confirm that the sinking had taken place out of sight of land, and that many hundreds had taken to lifeboats. It could be presumed that others had made land safely, but the sailors told Jake that Rochefort had forbidden them to try to search their fellow crewmen out or make contact with them.

They also mentioned that they didn’t know Rochefort was even on the St. Louis until he came ashore with them, and that they still didn’t know who the hell he was.

Good, Jake thought. The fewer who knew, the better.

Forty-seven hours after sending the message that all was well, they received the response. The first two digits were numeric and represented the number of days in the future when the pickup would be made. The next four digits were the time, and the final two were the location. The value of three was subtracted from each number or letter to give the true message.

“Jesus, Colonel”-Hawkins laughed-”they sure do make something complicated when given half a chance, don’t they?”

“I don’t know about you, Sergeant, but I kind of like it that way. The more careful they are, the more likely we are to pull this off.”

“Ah, sir. When the naval people leave, will you be going with them?”

Jake had been cleaning his rifle and squinted down the barrel. The question made him think of Alexa and so many others he knew. At least Alexa was likely safe, but the army people were in prison camps. It would be an easy call to say, yeah, he was going with Rochefort, and back to a land of hot coffee, doughnuts, warm beds, and clean uniforms, but somehow it wasn’t all that easy.

“No, I think I’ll stay here. The navy’ll be back sooner or later, and they’ll need some army help to get untracked.”

Hawkins grinned. “Thought you were going to do that. We’ve been talking it over, and we’d like to stay with you. Maybe we can really start our own little army, sir.”

Jake suddenly found it difficult to talk and nodded his thanks. Hawkins and his men were willing to follow him and put their lives in his hands. It was overwhelming and reminded him just what he found good about being in the military. Now all he had to do was make sure their efforts and risks weren’t wasted.

Toyoza Kaga wasn’t surprised when he was summoned to meet with the already infamous Colonel Omori. As one of the remaining important Japanese whose loyalty might lie with Tokyo, he considered the meeting almost inevitable.

They met in Omori’s headquarters at Schofield, and the colonel came right to the point. “We are forming a provisional government, and you will be an informal part of it.”

Kaga bowed. “I’m honored.” He did not miss the fact that he had been ordered to serve and not asked to volunteer.

Omori waved at a stack of papers. “One of my tasks here is to go over the records held by the American military and the FBI. They make for interesting reading. In some quarters you would be considered undesirable and disreputable, but you are successful and discreet as well as pragmatic. It is also true that you have a son in the service of Japan. You must be very proud of him.”

“Very much so,” Kaga replied.

“I believe I can use you as a liaison between myself and the remainder of the Japanese community, who, I am sad to say, have not entirely welcomed us. This, while not completely surprising, is perplexing and disappointing.”

“Give them time, Colonel. They are terribly confused. Many of them have family on the American mainland, as well as back on the Home Islands, and some even have sons in the American military. Others are waiting and wondering when there will be an official annexation of Hawaii as a province of Japan.”

Omori looked surprised. “That will happen soon. Haven’t we made it perfectly clear?”

“Forgive me, Colonel, but most people, myself included, recognize your sincerity but do not believe you are in a position to speak for Tokyo. In short, we are afraid of supporting Japan and then being bargained back to the United States, where we will be subject to American justice that will be extremely harsh.”

Omori glared at him as he recognized both the truth of what Kaga was saying and the fact that he had said it. Such an argumentative response in Japan would have merited at least a sharp slap across the face. Here it simply pointed out the differences between the Japanese of the Home Islands and the Japanese of Hawaii.

“Then we will be patient,” Omori finally said and dismissed Kaga.

As Kaga left, he had his driver pass the crude prison camps where thousands of American soldiers lived almost without shelter. Already they looked gaunt from lack of food and sunburned from exposure. Then, as he drove back to Honolulu, he passed long columns of men, American civilians, who were going to work assignments. Most would work as laborers in grueling circumstances.

Kaga leaned back in his seat and pondered. The distribution of wealth was in its early stages, but what was going to occur was obvious. All those with white skin were being deprived of their jobs and livelihoods, and put to work as a heavy labor force. The hard work, coupled with short rations, was already taking its toll, and many of the workers in the columns looked like they were scarcely able to shuffle along. Omori didn’t seem to care if civilians under his jurisdiction died, and Kaga wondered if that was part of a plan. He would have to discuss this with some of his closest and most trustworthy friends.

Closer to the city, life was far less brutal. There, almost every field and vacant spot of land had been turned into a garden, and the crops were starting to come in. Perhaps that, he thought, would alleviate most of the now pervasive hunger problem. Kaga had to admit that the Japanese idea of turning those parts of Oahu that had been sugar or pineapple plantations into rice paddies was potentially a good one. The work was backbreaking, but the Japanese government insisted that younger, stronger American women work at least two days each week in the paddies.

He passed one such project and ordered his driver to slow down. Close to a hundred American women were knee-deep in brown water. They wore either shorts or skirts with the hems tucked up into their waists, and were hunched over as they did something to the little plants that peeked out of the muddy water. That had been the first problem to be solved-the retention of water. Without any lakes or rivers of consequence, Hawaiian agriculture was dependent on the abundant rainfall and the water that percolated just below the volcanic surface of the land.

Kaga told the driver to stop. One of the workers looked familiar. It was the woman that Jake Novacek had asked him to look out for, Alexa Sanderson. At least, Kaga thought grimly, she was alive and healthy.

Alexa straightened up and bent backward to ease the pain in her lower back. A Japanese soldier who was overseeing the group yelled at her, and she went back to work without any comment or change of expression.

Beside her, Melissa groaned. “God, I hate this,” she whispered.

The soldiers frowned on too much conversation, although this day’s guard seemed not to care very much. His yelling at Alexa appeared to be more to keep his sergeant happy than out of any degree of nastiness. Alexa thought the Jap soldier looked more like a lost kid than a terrible enemy.

“I only hope we get to eat some of this,” Melissa added. “I’m really getting worried about Junior.”

Melissa had left her son with an older woman in the neighborhood while she went out to work. As a woman with a small child, she might have been exempt from the work gangs, but the field workers were also given additional food because of their strenuous tasks. This meant she had more for Jerry Junior.

Alexa agreed silently. At least the women were being given enough food to get by, while the men were fed less than minimal rations. She’d heard someplace that one of the Japanese strategies was to keep the men so weak that they wouldn’t be able to think of rebelling or sabotage. From the looks on the men’s faces, it was working and after only an extremely brief time.

“Of course,” Melissa whispered and giggled, “I could always put out for that guard. He seems to be enjoying our legs and what he can see of our boobs when we bend over. I really think he likes his women all sweaty and covered with mud.”

“I heard he has the clap,” Alexa said sweetly. “But go ahead if you must.”

She then wondered how many women already were trading sex for favors from the Japs. It was almost inevitable. For a woman, sex might be the only weapon or item of value she had left. Alexa wondered if Melissa would trade sexual favors for food for her son and decided that, under the circumstances, she probably would. Then she wondered whether she would do the same to prevent starvation or physical harm. The thought repelled her, but she could not deny the likelihood. Jake had said survive, and survive at all costs.

The Japanese strategy seemed to be to strip all semblance of dignity and respect from their civilian prisoners. And that, Alexa realized, was exactly what they were. The Japanese were not an occupying force that permitted the civilian world to function as before. No, they were restructuring the entire economy and social fabric of the islands.

The thought occurred to her that aching muscles from planting rice might someday be the least of her worries.

The gentleman from the Portuguese embassy, Rodrigo Salazar, was a little nervous. He was a low-ranking functionary and had never been in the White House, much less met President Roosevelt.

“Please understand,” Salazar said in correct but halting English, “my country and I are merely the messengers in this unfortunate situation.”

By early 1942, Portugal was one of a diminishing number of neutral nations left among the major powers. In Europe, the others were Switzerland, Spain, Ireland, and Sweden. To a large extent, their neutrality was a fiction. Portugal was unofficially with the Allies, while the other nations were more or less in the Axis camp. Some of this was geographic pragmatism. Switzerland and Sweden bordered Axis powers, while the Spanish government had been supported by Hitler in their civil war and had a long land border with Nazi-dominated France.

Ireland, of course, hated anything British and was only now coming to grips with the fact that the United States, the land where so many of her sons and daughters had emigrated, was allied with Great Britain, whom she despised.

Portugal, facing westward on the Atlantic, and thoroughly distrusting neighboring Spain, leaned toward the United States. Portugal also had diplomatic ties with Tokyo, which made her useful for the unofficial exchange of messages.

In the New World, most of the nations of Latin America were in the Allied camp, while the larger nations of South America-Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru-still straddled the fence.

“This is amazing,” Roosevelt said as he handed the message to his secretary of state, Cordell Hull. “First they conquer Hawaii and now the Japs expect us to provide food for the Hawaiians.”

“It confronts a hard reality,” Hull said. “The islands do not grow enough food to support their population, and the only way to prevent starvation is to permit ships to bring food. Japan does not have surplus food, so that leaves us. We may have instituted rationing and be feeding other nations, but we will always have food for our own people.”

“The Japanese say it will only be for a short while,” Salazar said. “They are converting the islands into a self-sustaining agricultural economy, and this process should be completed within a few months.

In the meantime, they require a convoy of food each month to feed Americans in Hawaii.”

“And none of this good food will reach their army, will it?” Hull asked sarcastically and then apologized when he saw the discomfort on Salazar’s face. “Of course it will, and please forgive me. I did forget that you are the messenger and not the message.”

Salazar grinned. “At least you will not have me beheaded.”

“Not immediately,” Roosevelt said. “How many ships do we need each month?”

Salazar checked his notes. “It depends on the size of the vessel. Between twenty-five and fifty. You do understand that the Japanese will not permit American flagged ships to enter Hawaiian waters, do you not? They understand that declarations of war on them by some of the South and Latin American countries are without substance and will accept ships flying those flags.”

“Ducky,” Hull said with uncharacteristic candor.

“We accept,” Roosevelt said. “I will not permit Americans to starve if there is any way I can prevent it.”

After a moment’s polite conversation, Salazar departed.

“I wish to see King and Marshall,” Roosevelt said. “Perhaps there’s something useful they can make of this.”

Hull demurred. “The Japs’ll be watching the convoy like hawks. I’m sure they are familiar with the legend of the Trojan horse.”

Roosevelt started to make a pair of martinis. “What we do and how we do it are the military’s problem. I do think, however, that they could be looking so hard for a Trojan horse that they might miss something more obvious, such as submarines landing men and supplies.”

The thought pleased him, and he began to chuckle.