1942

CHAPTER 23

It was a miracle, Magruder thought. The skies over Oahu were clear, and the ships below in Pearl Harbor were lit up like Christmas trees. No one had yet spotted his flight of planes, and he began to hope that he could make his attack without any interference.

It was not to be. A glowing finger of tracers lifted from a large ship-a cruiser or a battleship-as someone realized that the unexpected planes were hostile.

Magruder’s eleven pilots were confused by the abundance of targets. Their orders had been to hit the carriers first and the fuel tanks second, but it almost seemed like there were more Jap carriers than Magruder had planes. This was something Magruder hadn’t anticipated, and he ordered his pilots to spread out and attack several targets. He didn’t want all eleven dropping their bombs on the same ship.

More antiaircraft batteries opened up, and the sky was alive with shells. Magruder screamed for them to attack, and the eleven planes began their dives.

And then there were ten as a Wildcat to the left exploded. Magruder homed in on a carrier. Guns were firing everywhere, and it dawned on him that they were just firing into the sky and hadn’t really seen him in the darkness.

He pulled the release, and his two small bombs fell free and exploded on the flight deck. He banked away, and suddenly the largest ship in the world was in front of him, its antiaircraft guns blazing. Magruder fired his machine guns even though he knew doing so was like shooting spitballs at an elephant. Maybe he would hit some of the people shooting at him.

A fuel tank on a hill erupted like a volcano, and the concussion shook his plane. Or had he been hit? Magruder checked his gauges, and they were okay. He could keep on, but without bombs he was useless. He flew low over a destroyer and strafed it with some of his remaining ammo. As he flew away, he banked slightly and saw a fire on the destroyer’s stern. Hot damn, he thought. A carrier and a destroyer! But how much damage had he actually done?

After only a few moments, the raid was over. Magruder flew out over the ocean, where a line of Japanese destroyer pickets was also firing at the moon. He again broke radio silence and called for his flock to gather on him.

Four of them found him-that was all. As they flew away from Pearl Harbor, Magruder tallied the cost. He had lost six of his eleven planes. But, judging from the fires he’d seen, they had caused immense damage to the Japanese fleet. There were still no Zeros in the sky, and this meant he stood a chance of getting to another island in safety.

To sortie or not to sortie, thought Admiral Yamamoto, that was the question. He was mimicking some of what he’d learned as an English language student at Harvard before the war while he waited for damage reports in what had been the offices of Admiral Kimmel. When he got them, he would consider his options, and sortieing the fleet was one of them.

The idea of anchoring the entire fleet in Pearl Harbor had been a good one. Had he anchored a good portion outside the defended confines of Pearl, those outside the harbor would have been at the mercy of American submarines, which were getting more and more aggressive. It occurred to him that a pell-mell exodus from Pearl might just lead him to a wolf pack of waiting submarines.

In order to stay out of the clutches of the submarines, those ships outside the harbor would have had to keep in motion, maneuvering to keep the tracking subs confused. That would use up precious fuel, which was to be expended while attacking Alaska and bombarding the American West Coast. The fuel storage tanks were less than half full; thus, he had no real fallback reserve.

But the appearance of American carrier planes had been a complete shock. Cursory examination of the wreckage of one had identified it as an F4F Wildcat.

So where was the carrier? Was there a carrier? Was there more than one carrier? Despite the chaos of the attack, Yamamoto was convinced that only a handful of planes had struck and then fled. Why only a handful? A shame he couldn’t ask any of the pilots, but they’d either been killed or had not been found yet.

There was no carrier, he realized with a smile. Even a light carrier had many more fighters than had been thrown at his fleet. Thus, the planes had come from one of the other Hawaiian islands. Yamamoto concluded that they must have been hidden since before the invasion. The logical place was the Big Island of Hawaii, the only area where there was any American guerrilla activity. On such a large island, it wouldn’t have been difficult to hide the planes, and he grudgingly admired both the bravery of the American pilots and their ingenuity.

Commander Watanabe approached him. “I have a damage summary, sir.”

“Go on.”

“No ships were sunk, and light damage was done to only a few. The Akagi was hit by one small bomb, but it did not penetrate her armored flight deck.”

Yamamoto stifled a chuckle. Admiral Nagumo had been asleep on the Akagi. The sudden explosion must have shocked him considerably.

“The fuel fire is under control,” Watanabe continued. “Only one tank was hit, and we were fortunate in that the ones beside it were empty. It may have been hit by one of our own antiaircraft shells and not an American bomb.”

“Very good,” Yamamoto said.

“Some other damage was also caused by wild antiaircraft firing. Falling shells struck several vessels and buildings, causing some spectacular-looking fires, including the fuel tank on the hill, but, again, no serious damage was done. No more than fifty of our men were killed or injured.”

So, Yamamoto pondered, the attack had been a pinprick. No ships had been lost, and most of the precious fuel reserve was intact. But the Americans would trumpet it like a great victory. He could not deny that he’d been attacked, and the American propagandists would have a field day, while Japanese government officials would cringe with embarrassment. He would have to apologize for his failures.

“Do you plan to sortie the fleet?” Watanabe asked.

“No, although I may wish to send a carrier out in the morning. Inform Admiral Nagumo of my intent. I’m sure he’s awake,” he said drily. “I am almost totally convinced that there is not an American carrier nearby, but I do not wish to take chances. I also wish to speak with Admiral Iwabachi. Where the devil were his fighters? He had responsibility for protecting us, and he has failed. I want to know why.”

Watanabe nodded. He too wondered how even a handful of American fighters had managed to slip in unnoticed until the last minute. The sharp-eyed lookout who had spotted them in the night would be commended. It occurred to Watanabe that he could hear no planes in the air. Were the skies over the fleet still empty of Japanese fighters? He would contact Admiral Iwabachi immediately.

Giant antennae on hills near the California coast picked up even some of the most minor conversations and broadcasts emanating from Hawaii. The commercial radio stations had both reported explosions in the harbor before going off the air, doubtless at Japanese insistence. In the heat of battle, a number of military messages were broadcast in the clear; thus, Admiral Nimitz was able to stay apprised of events virtually as they transpired.

Nimitz turned and looked gloomily at the others. “Some success, but not enough. There is no indication of their fleet moving, nor is there any indication of serious damage to any of the ships or the fuel tanks.”

Perhaps it had been a ridiculous idea, but what other choice had they? There were to have been three attacks at almost the same time. Yes, he’d accepted that such coordination over great distances was virtually impossible, but he’d hoped for better than this. Guerrillas had struck successfully at Wheeler, while fighters had attacked the fleet at anchor. The pilots would be trumpeting great victories, but experience had taught them all that these would be gross, albeit well-intended, exaggerations. Also, the pilots appeared to have attacked early. Someone in Nimitz’s headquarters had misunderstood the difference in time zones, and Magruder’s attack had been two hours too soon.

The third prong was Doolittle’s flying boats, and where were they? By now the Japanese would be recovering from their shock and preparing their defenses. A handful of flying boats attacking later would not stampede them out of the harbor, and that was the essence of the plan. Pearl Harbor’s Achilles’ heel was the narrow channel that was both its entrance and its exit. The Monkfish was placed by the entrance for one purpose-to sink a large Japanese vessel in the channel and block it. With the Japanese fleet thus trapped, Spruance was to attack.

The plan was daring, convoluted, cockeyed, and crazy, but, if it had succeeded, a tremendous blow would have been delivered against Japan. Would have been, Nimitz thought sadly.

Jamie Priest stood quietly against a wall and tried not to stare at the admiral. He didn’t envy Nimitz at all. The admiral’s normally ruddy complexion was pale. People had died this night, and many more would die. High command was a terrible burden, and Jamie was glad he had none of it.

“What should we tell Admiral Spruance?” asked a more senior staff officer.

“Nothing. We’ll let him wait until we’re absolutely certain that this has failed. There’ll be plenty of time to recall the fleet to California.”

Off California, the smaller American fleet would have to confront Yamamoto in open battle, where they would be greatly outnumbered and outgunned. Defeat would be almost inevitable. Of course, he could save the fleet by holding it back and letting Yamamoto’s ships bombard California’s cities unopposed. What a helluva choice, Nimitz thought. He would have to tell Admiral King, who would have the pleasure of telling President Roosevelt. King had been worried about FDR’s health, and this would not help.

Nimitz decided. He would save the fleet. They would not interfere with Japanese operations off California. It would likely be destroyed in any confrontation with the Japs and the West Coast bombarded anyhow. The civilians would have to watch out for themselves. In a perverse way, Admiral King might actually be pleased. He could use the attack as another lever to prod Roosevelt into sending more forces into the Pacific and not into Europe. Nimitz wondered if that was such a good idea. While he strongly desired to defeat Japan, he recognized that both Britain and Russia needed to be propped up or the United States would be fighting both Japan and Germany all by herself.

Damn it, he thought.

“Sir,” ventured Jamie, “should we recall Colonel Doolittle?”

Damn. Why hadn’t he remembered that sooner? Nimitz was about to give the order when he had second thoughts. Doolittle had wanted the opportunity, begged for it, and, besides, the American flying boats were probably making their runs right now. How late could they be?

“No,” he said, “let Doolittle use his discretion. However, you may send a signal getting the Monkfish out of there.” Then he paused. “But first wait until we hear from Doolittle.”

Akira Kaga was one of the few remaining “Japanese” soldiers at Wheeler. Their task done, the others had been sent to their homes with orders to keep their mouths shut, bury the rifles, and destroy the Japanese uniforms. They all knew that if one of them was captured and talked, all of them would ultimately die horrible deaths at the hands of the kempetei.

“Here they come,” said John Takura, one of the “sergeants.”

They could see the headlights of a column of vehicles approaching the entrance to the base. Akira smiled. Whoever was in charge was being fairly prudent in bringing a large force but still didn’t understand what had happened. A staff car led a number of trucks that easily contained a full company of infantry. With their lights on, they might as well have been driving in a moonlight parade.

“Now,” Akira said, and John pushed the handle on a plunger. An instant later, the road where the staff car and the lead trucks had been erupted in a bright flash and the thunder of several explosions. Vehicle parts and bodies flew through the air until the dust and smoke swallowed them.

Akira nodded again, and a second plunger was pushed. A series of larger but distant explosions rocked the air. Immense clouds showed where Wheeler’s runways, now cratered, had been. A series of smaller bangs, and the parked planes, already sabotaged, were obliterated. This last part was a luxury. Akira hadn’t thought they’d have time to do any more than ruin the engines.

Akira surveyed the ruined column of vehicles. Screams and shouts could be heard, but no one had begun a move toward the base. He must have beheaded their leadership. Akira nodded to his companions and allowed himself a smile. “I think we’ve done pretty well. Now let’s go to our homes and forget we ever knew each other.”

Admiral Yamamoto was livid. Iwabachi had not kept him properly informed. There were no fighters flying over the fleet, and none were available. Wheeler’s runways had been cratered, and all the planes there had been blown up. It was now even more imperative that a carrier and its escorts be situated outside the confines of Pearl Harbor.

For the moment, aerial surveillance was being performed by the handful of floatplanes attached to the cruisers and battleships. As these were lightly armed at best, they could hardly be considered a combat air patrol. But at least they could watch the area outside the islands, and they had confirmed that no enemy warships were in the vicinity.

The floatplanes had limited range, however, and Yamamoto had ordered the larger seaplanes recalled from Hilo and elsewhere for longer patrols.

Colonel Omori and Commander Watanabe walked outside Admiral Yamamoto’s Pearl Harbor headquarters for a cigarette. Inside, Iwabachi was getting thoroughly chastised for letting the attacks occur, and neither man wanted to be present at the other’s humiliation.

Omori, who was not in as much disfavor with Yamamoto as was Iwabachi, was puzzled. “Forgive my ignorance of naval matters, Watanabe, but why can’t you use the planes on the carriers?”

The naval commander flipped his cigarette butt onto the sidewalk and ground it with his heel. His frustration was obvious. “Because carrier planes must be launched into the wind and from a moving vessel. The combined wind and ship speeds are needed so a plane can get enough lift to get airborne. With the carriers anchored in Pearl, no planes can take off. The floatplanes are launched by catapults from the battleships and cruisers, so they don’t need the wind as much.”

Now Omori understood the need to get a carrier out to sea, although he wondered why catapults couldn’t be developed for use on a carrier. Getting a carrier out of the harbor would not happen until dawn at the earliest. Yamamoto did not want to risk a ship going aground in the narrow channel and blocking it, and there was no arguing with his logic. With no enemy fleet, or even additional planes, there was urgency but no need to do something rash. It was getting lighter with each passing moment, and the designated force had steam up and was almost ready to proceed.

An additional problem was the way the ships were anchored. The sunken American warships in the harbor had compounded the crowding, and the carrier Akagi, not one of the escorting cruisers, as would normally be the case, would be the first ship out. The Akagi was anchored closest to the entrance, and it was impractical even to attempt to maneuver the cruisers past her bulk. Ships could not be shuttled around like cars in a parking lot. Yamamoto was not happy with the situation, but he accepted the reality.

The large carrier’s decks were full of planes ready to take off and protect the remainder of the fleet, and many of her officers who had been celebrating in Honolulu had been located and returned. Even so, the Akagi would depart significantly shorthanded, and with pilots whose heads must be bursting from hangovers.

Watanabe walked by the water, and Omori followed him. “At least this crisis will be over shortly,” Watanabe said. “It is incredible that not only are there no usable planes on Oahu but there are no usable fields. It will take only a day or two to repair the damaged airstrips at Wheeler, but, until then, we are naked. I am confident the fields at Hickam and Ford Island will also be put into service in a matter of hours.”

In the dark blue sky that preceded dawn, Omori saw motion. Planes were approaching. For a moment he puzzled over their odd shape, and then he identified them. “Ah, I see the flying boats from Hilo are arriving.”

Watanabe was puzzled. “Why? What are they doing here? They are supposed to be patrolling.” Then a look of horror crossed his face.

As the dark and mountainous islands grew closer and the dawn began to rise, Colonel Jimmy Doolittle saw fingers of smoke arising from several places in the harbor.

“Damn it,” he muttered, “they’ve already been attacked. So much for coordination.” He didn’t add that headwinds had slowed his flight, making them later than planned.

Captain Haskins, his copilot, chuckled grimly. “What’d you expect? Just a typical navy fuckup. At least we were able to find Hawaii. Too bad we seem to have lost Meagher’s plane.”

Doolittle wasn’t inclined to argue. As they approached, the two men searched the sky for fighters and found none. At least that part was going right.

But where was Meagher? With him gone and radio silence still unbroken, the five planes were now four. A 20 percent reduction in their small force and nothing had happened yet. He had no idea where Meagher was, but they couldn’t wait for him. Any second now and they’d be spotted and Zeros would be all over their butts. No, Meagher would have to take care of himself. Maybe he’d had an engine malfunction and had turned back? It didn’t matter. They were going to go straight in, drop their bombs, and fly out the back door.

The four planes went in side by side, low and as fast as they could, which caused the surface to race by. Finally, puffs of smoke in the air said that antiaircraft gunners had spotted them. Uncertain exactly which Japanese ships were where in the harbor; Doolittle’s planes broke in pairs, with two on each side of Ford Island. South of Ford Island, along Battleship Row, where so many American battleships had been sunk, six carriers were anchored. Doolittle noted that one of them seemed to be making for the entrance, while smoke came from another.

North of the island were the battleships and heavy cruisers, and a couple of the cruisers were moving as well. Other, smaller ships were parked like trucks in a motor pool in the East and Middle Loch around Pearl City. They didn’t concern him. He wanted the carriers and the fuel tanks.

Doolittle broke radio silence and ordered the two planes north of Ford to ignore the giant battlewagons and swing south to attack either the carriers or the fuel.

There was a tremendous flash to Doolittle’s right. “What the hell was that?”

“Miller’s plane,” answered Floyd, one of his side gunners. His voice was shaky and difficult to hear over the chatter of the machine gun. The side and tail gunners were using their guns on anything in sight, and the din had become almost deafening. It might not have been useful, but damn, it felt good.

“It’s blowing up like the Fourth of July,” Floyd added.

Doolittle swallowed. With so many incendiaries and so much fuel onboard, a direct hit could turn them into a flying Roman candle like Miller’s.

The plane rocked from near misses, and debris from exploded shells rattled against the hull. They were so low, only five hundred feet, that the Japanese gunners were having a hard time tracking them. Then they were over a carrier, and the plane shuddered as the bomb load was released. They had done their job.

“Let’s go home,” Doolittle yelled. Another of his planes was burning and heading for the deck. She would not make it to California or anywhere else. Doolittle watched in horror as antiaircraft guns concentrated on the cripple, blowing hundreds of little pieces off her. Her only chance was a landing in the waters just outside Pearl. He prayed that some of her crew would survive.

At least, Doolittle thought grimly, she was distracting Jap guns from him.

The plane lurched violently. “What the hell?” he blurted out. They’d been hit. Haskins ran back to check on it. Seconds later, he reported over the intercom that the side gunner, Floyd, was dead and two others were wounded.

“Can we fly?” Doolittle asked.

Haskins’s voice trembled. “God, Colonel, Floyd’s all over the place. It’s awful.”

“But can we fly?” Doolittle repeated.

Haskins paused. This time his voice was a little firmer. “Yes, if you don’t mind a large hole in the fuselage. I would recommend flying slowly and at low altitude.”

“Okay,” Doolittle said gently, “now you take care of the wounded as best you can.”

“Yes, sir.”

Doolittle ordered his other surviving plane to head directly back to California. She too had been hit a number of times, and he wondered if she would make it. Then he gained altitude for a look at the damage they’d wrought and was dismayed. There were no large fires, and no explosions. There were several small ones, but they looked like they could be contained. He may have added a little to what damage had been done earlier, but it was hard to tell.

It was bravely done, he thought, but was it worth it? Assuming he made it home, he would get his brigadier’s star, but for what? He’d slapped the Japs across the face, but that was all.

“For Christ’s sake,” said Haskins through the intercom. “Will you look at that?”

Doolittle turned and looked out over the harbor. Meagher’s plane had arrived and was beginning its run. But he was high, much too high.

Without the others to guide him, Meagher had flown at a higher altitude than planned. This, he’d hoped, would make it easier to find the islands by widening his scope of vision. That and good navigation had worked. Oahu was dead ahead.

As he put the plane in a gentle dive toward optimum bombing height, he noted the absence of serious smoke and fire, the total lack of Japanese aircraft and antiaircraft fire. For a fleeting second he wondered if his was the first plane, but then he saw a few small fires burning and knew that the others had preceded him. They didn’t appear to have accomplished a lot, he thought.

But he wasn’t late by much, he exulted. And all the Jap gunners were tracking the two flying boats he could now see off in the distance. Nobody was looking for Tail-end Charlie.

“Pick a target,” he yelled at Tomanelli.

His copilot swallowed and tried to control his terror. The entire Jap navy was on review before them. “That carrier on the move,” he said. “Its decks are full of planes.”

“Good thinking,” Meagher responded. Most of the others had only a few planes on their decks, while this one was loaded for bear.

Meagher lined up his plane. He would cross the carrier on a stern-to-bow run and then fly out over the ocean and to safety.

Then the Jap gunners saw them and opened fire. The plane shuddered from minor hits and near misses as the Japanese frantically tried to get them in their sights.

Meagher was just about to order bombs away when a four-inch shell from a destroyer ripped through the front of the pilot’s cabin and blew him to bloody pieces before it exited the top of the plane.

Tomanelli was knocked unconscious by the blast and the impact of Meagher’s body parts striking him. The copilot’s body slumped forward on the controls, and the plane dropped more sharply as it rapidly approached the carrier.

At first, it looked like the crippled flying boat would pass over the Akagi, but then it dropped more quickly and fell onto the flight deck, about a hundred feet from the stern. To the astonished Japanese, it looked like the flying boat had attempted a landing on the carrier.

Still moving forward, the massive Boeing plowed through the parked planes, knocking several of them overboard like they were toys. The flying boat was slowed by the wreckage and finally stopped as its massive wing collided with the carrier’s superstructure. For a second, it sat there, a dead plane on the flight deck of a Japanese carrier. Then the fuel exploded, and, an instant later, that set off the bombs still in its hull. The crash landing on the Akagi had ruptured fuel tanks on the Japanese planes, and they too exploded almost immediately. In seconds, the carrier’s entire flight deck and superstructure were engulfed in a cloud of flames that was punctuated by explosions as Japanese bombs and shells were lit off.

The Akagi was now a moving torch, with torrents of flame dripping down her sides and crewmen hurling themselves off her and into the safety of the harbor. Without apparent guidance, she continued inexorably on in the last direction that had been ordered. There was no one alive on her decks or on the bridge to order a change of course as she headed toward the side of the channel.

The officers and men in the Monkfish had spent a restless night. The explosions in the harbor resonated through the water and caused the sub to vibrate. Despite the obvious danger, Lieutenant Commander Fargo had recognized the necessity to keep the air changed and the electric engines charged. Thus, they had spent a good deal of the night with the conning tower barely visible.

The sub’s crew were gaunt, unshaven, and filthy, and those not actually on duty were condemned to spend their time in their bunks as a means of conserving energy and oxygen.

While on the surface, they caught the tail end of the fireworks display that had marked Magruder’s attack on the fleet. By the time Doolittle’s planes had arrived, the sub was snugly back under the water. Fargo was confident that Japanese radar was crummy and their sonar even worse, but there was nothing wrong with their eyeballs.

Now, as gunfire reverberated for the second time, the men were at their battle stations, where they tried to pretend they weren’t scared to death.

“This is it,” Fargo proclaimed unnecessarily. Even the village idiot knew that tonight was the reason they’d waited so long in the Pearl Harbor channel.

His chief of boats announced that he thought he could hear screws approaching through the clutter. Fargo accepted the assessment. It was said that the chief could hear a mouse pissing ten miles away. If Flannery said a ship was coming, it was coming.

Fargo peered through the binoculars at where the channel turned slightly. At first there was nothing, and then the bulk of a large ship came into view.

“Carrier,” he said, and then incredulously, “and she’s burning. Oh my God.”

The ship that filled his view was aflame from bow to stern, and he saw people jumping off the crippled vessel from wherever they could. For a moment Fargo wondered, if this ship was already badly damaged, should he wait for another one?

Then he realized that the carrier was out of control. With a lurch, the ship ground into the side of the channel and began to swing away as her screws continued to churn up the water. In a few seconds, she would be broadside to him, and Fargo fully understood what he had to do.

“Fire one,” he ordered, and the sub vibrated as the torpedo sped on its way. It was virtually point-blank range. The enemy ship was so close, there had been only the need to point the sub and shoot. Nor had there been any thought of firing under the ship and using her magnetic field to detonate the torpedoes. These would be impact hits. “Fire two. Fire three. Fire four.”

The men of the Monkfish held their breath and waited for Fargo’s report. Seconds passed, and there was nothing. The first torpedo had been a dud.

“Damn it,” snarled Fargo. As he said it, the second torpedo struck the side of the carrier and exploded, sending a column of water high above the burning flight deck, but not as high as the flames that billowed from it.

Torpedoes three and four exploded seconds later, and the crew exulted. While the forward tubes were being reloaded, Fargo carefully turned the ship around so that the stern tubes faced the stricken carrier. These were fired, and both exploded against the hull of the dying carrier.

It was time to go. If the carrier survived five hits and the fire, she deserved to live. He ordered the Monkfish out into the open sea. Still at periscope depth, he searched for Japanese destroyers and saw a pair of them several miles to his port side. Incredibly, they were cruising away from him! He had no idea what had distracted them from the channel, but he didn’t care.

Swiveling the periscope back to the channel, Fargo saw a sight that stunned him. The carrier, torn apart by the five hits and other explosions, had taken on a definite and fatal list to port. Burning debris had begun to fall off the flight deck and into the sea as the ship slowly capsized.

“We got us a carrier,” he announced to his cheering crew. “And, if we’re damned lucky and the creek don’t rise, we got us a chance of getting the hell out of here.”

And maybe, he thought, just maybe, they had blocked the fucking channel.