Days of Infamy (17 page)

One was dropped by the trailing Wildcat. A second Kate blew apart as he passed near the bow of an escorting destroyer. The remaining two dropped their fish from a half mile out, the two planes splitting in opposite directions. At the same instant a cry went up that four more dive bombers were winging over.

Still he said nothing. It was no longer his job. He stood silent watching, with another call coming in that a second wave was approaching from west-northwest, fifteen miles out and closing fast, twenty-plus planes.

Leveling out from its turn to starboard,
Enterprise
was racing full out at nearly thirty-five knots. Reports were the Jap torpedoes could do forty-five to fifty knots. A stern chase. Halsey ran a quick calculation in his head, knowing the captain was doing the same: about two minutes; turn or run straight?

Antiaircraft fire was soaring upward, the smell of cordite from the
guns forward whipping past the bridge. It was going to be tight. One of the dive bombers was hit, turning, wing shearing off, but the other three bore in. A second one ignited into flames. Two dropped, bombs coming down, misjudging, he could see they’d strike to port, but the Val wrapped in flames… My God, the man was coming straight in, not releasing, steepening his dive at his target, which, racing at flank speed, was trying to run out from under.

“Down!”

He needed no urging, was flat on the open bridge, the howl of the engine cut off a second later by a thunderclap, as dive bomber, pilot, and gunner, with a five-hundred-kilo armor-piercing bomb, crashed forward of the bridge, into the starboard gunnery deck. The armor-piercing bomb blew when it hit the heavy steel of an antiaircraft gun’s breech. The Japanese plane burst apart, engine cutting through the deck, which projected out from the side of the carrier, and scraped down the side of the carrier, trailing flame, the exploding bomb slicing out a section of decking, tearing a gaping hole into the gunnery deck thirty feet across, but not penetrating into the vitals of the carrier. A fireball of flame erupted as shrapnel from the bomb tore open one of the Devastator bombers that had been spotted forward, instantly killing its crew, spilling out more than two hundred gallons of fuel, which instantly flashed, threatening to spread under the rest of
Enterprise’s
planes on deck. The heat was blown back by the thirty-knot wind slapping against the bridge, so Halsey had to shield his face.

The phone on the bridge rang. A young ensign, sticking his head out, shouted, “Captain, we got a report of torpedo running to starboard!”

Halsey went with the captain around to the starboard railing and looked out. It was a blood-chilling sight, the wake of a torpedo cutting through the water, running exactly parallel to them less than fifty yards off, slowly overtaking the carrier. A few seconds later another call, reporting a second torpedo, this one to port, on the same track.

Enterprise
was boxed, unable to maneuver as two more dive bombers winged in. And somehow running straight ahead, unable to
turn, saved them. The dive bomber pilots, side by side, coordinated their release well, and the bombs detonated where
Enterprise
would have been if she had started to turn in either direction.

From bow clear back to the bridge
Enterprise
seemed to be burning, listing now several degrees to port, plates below the waterline crushed in from the near misses.

Deck crews were valiantly struggling to save their planes, unable to move farther aft due to the bomb explosion in the recovery area, nor forward because of the fire raging along the deck forward of the bridge. Firefighters were turning their water hoses and foam sprayers on the planes, soaking them down, while other teams sprayed foam underneath to try and contain the spreading pool of av gas from the destroyed Devastator and the Val. A second Devastator burst into flames, crew trapped inside. He could hear their screams.

If the deck had been packed with the ship’s full complement of nearly a hundred planes, rather than the thirty survivors of the first strike and patrol, there would have been no room to move aircraft, and a massive chain reaction would have ignited them all.

Thus momentarily saved,
Enterprise
staggered into a low-hanging mist, an early morning tropical shower, still engulfed in smoke and flames. The second wave, this one from
Hiryu
, was upon them, eight Kates, nine Vals, and seven escorting Zeroes. Through the clouds the strike leader in a Val saw one of the escorting cruisers,
Salt Lake City
, momentarily mistook it for a small carrier, half obscured by the smoke trailing astern from the
Enterprise
, and at the same instant heard an exuberant report from one of the surviving Vals from
Soryu
that the first enemy carrier was awash in flames and starting to roll over.

He went into his dive on the cruiser, followed by the rest of his group, and a minute later the cruiser was a flaming wreck, hit by three bombs and bracketed by three near misses. The group leader for the Kates, flying lower, at the last possible moment countermanded the order to hit the cruiser, but then was torn apart by antiaircraft fire from a destroyer, his group then splitting up, four heading for
Enterprise
, the other three for the burning cruiser. One of the surviving Wildcats died fending off the attack on
Enterprise;
a second pilot rammed a Kate
when he ran out of ammunition. One of the torpedoes, however, took the cruiser amidships, breaking its back. Another Kate declared a hit on the
Enterprise
and proudly announced it was sinking. In reality he had missed, the torpedo striking wreckage falling off the ship astern.

And then it was over, the attack wave leaving, planes scattered out, a lone Wildcat of their combat air patrol reporting the Japs were retiring to the northwest, the same direction they had come from. There remained a total of four American fighters still alive over the carrier. There was no place for them to land, and McCloskey gave them the option of circling until the deck was cleared, when they could try a landing without arresting gear, or running instead for Pearl. There was a hesitation, and then their leader loyally said they’d hang on and circle. They had guts. It’d been practiced before, landing without arresting hook on, assuming a hit to the stern of the ship, but the entire deck would have to be clear to give them enough space for a rollout, with brakes locked, a temporary barrier set up at the bow as a final stop point, though hitting the wires strung there would smash the prop and take the plane out of action.

A brief tropical squall lashed the deck for a moment as they steamed through the low-hanging clouds. The cooling rain was a relief, and it helped a bit with the fire, and then the ship burst back out into sunshine. Halsey thought for a moment how such random things, that momentary squall, might one day be seen as a significant part of the battle, a hand of God that perhaps saved his ship.

Fire crews were out all along the deck, pouring water down into the hole aft, other crews foaming down the impact along the railing. A small dozer, driven by a crewman in an asbestos suit, was pushing the twisted, burning wreckage of the two Devastators over the side railing. Halsey caught a glimpse of a chaplain walking alongside the tractor, making the sign of the cross in blessing as one plane after another went over the rail, her dead, flame-blackened crew still strapped in, and disappeared into the sea.

“Stubbs. I want a report!”

He was overriding the captain, but the hell with protocol.

The chief engineering officer for
Enterprise
, Commander Stubbs,
was out on the bridge, helmet off, wiping his brow. During the excitement of the attack he had nearly chewed through his unlit cigar, which hung now at a drunken angle from the corner of his mouth.

“Sir?”

“How bad?”

“We got fires down in the main galley, a severed gas line aft which has been secured. Aft machine shop is still burning. Reports of at least twenty hull ruptures, nearly all on the starboard side from bulkheads fifteen through thirty-five, from near misses. Watertight security is holding, though. Thank God no direct torpedo hits.”

He forced a smile. “She’ll hold, sir.”

“Good man. Now how soon can I launch?”

“Sir?”

“You heard me, damn it. How soon can we launch?”

Stubbs went over to the railing of the bridge and looked at the fire still raging forward.

“Give me an hour, sir.”

“Fine.”

“But sir, what about recovery? We won’t be able to land a full strike force for hours. Those birds up there now, the fighters, we can squeeze in, but the others?” and he shrugged his shoulders. “The entire arresting system was blown out, and it’ll take hours to cover that hole once the fire is contained. And that covering is going to have to be reinforced to withstand the shock of touchdown from the heavier planes.”

“I’ll figure that out later,” Halsey replied. “Just get us ready to launch as soon as possible. I think the Japs are close, real close. Maybe less than a hundred miles off. I want to hit those bastards before they get in a second blow. Now get to it, man!”

The first after-battle reports were coming in, picked up from squadron leaders of
Soryu
and
Hiryu
returning to their ships.

One
Enterprise-class
ship, most likely the
Enterprise
itself, was reported as listing and sinking, deck awash in flames. Strangely, a second ship—the squadron leader insisted it was a carrier as well—was sinking. His report was countered though by an angry Zero pilot from
Soryu
, insisting the
Hiryu’s
men had hit a cruiser.

Frustratingly, his search to the west was proving fruitless. The first search planes were returning, and a second wave was preparing to go out. The task force of four carriers had yet to strike a single blow this day. All the action had been by the pilots of
Soryu
and
Hiryu.
They had most likely made a kill, but to be certain, they should go back for a second attack as soon as possible.

HALSEY GLARED AT
the three squadron leaders who stood before him on the bridge.
Enterprise
had only eight of the original Dauntlesses left, augmented by the Dauntlesses used as search planes and five Wildcats to escort. The Devastators were still intact as a group except for the two lost when the Val had hit them.

“You got separated this morning, no coordination. Do that again and all three of you are beached and will be teaching student pilots somewhere in North Dakota. Do we understand each other?”

No one spoke.

“Form up here, within sight of this ship, then track northwest, together, as a single unit. They’re less than a hundred miles out, I think at least two Jap carriers for certain, and I want them both.”

He spared a quick glance back down to the deck. Steam and smoke were still billowing out from the hit astern.

They had slowed to ten knots, running southwest, away from their intended target, but going relative to the wind so that the fires still burning on the hangar deck aft were not fanned. Smoke was coiling out from either side, billowing straight up in a funereal shroud. Forward the last of the fire had been suppressed, though smoke and steam were still rising. Half a dozen miles astern all could see where
Salt Lake City
was still burning, broken in half, going down.

“I want payback,” Halsey snarled.

“Sir.” It was Struble. He nodded toward the torn-up deck astern.

“What about recovery?”

Halsey nodded, hating to say what he was about to order. It would mean his ship, as a truly effective combat force, was out of it, once these planes were launched.

“The target is most likely a hundred miles southwest of Oahu. After you hit it …”

He paused, looking aft toward the still torn-up deck.

“Unless you hear otherwise from me, you are to proceed on to Oahu and land there.”

“Word is our planes that landed there yesterday got shot to hell,” Struble replied, trying to sound calm.

Halsey nodded.

“Let’s hope they have their shit in order today.”

“At least they won’t be able to track us back,” Struble finally replied, and Halsey nodded in agreement.

No one spoke in reply.

“Now go sink some Japs.”

The three saluted and scurried off the bridge. He watched them go, shaking his head. No one a week ago was talking about the Japs having the rumored Zeroes on their carriers, and now his planes were getting shredded by them. This was a forlorn gesture he was now ordering back into the fight against them. He wondered if any of them would still be alive an hour from now.

He looked over at Wade McCloskey and could see the pleading look in his eyes, and he was almost tempted to yield. Hell, once this flight lifted off, there’d be no job for him, but instinct told him to keep this man on board for now. There’d be use, damn good use for him later.

Down on the deck he could see pilots looking up at the bridge in anticipation of McCloskey giving the flag signal to begin launch. And in his heart he knew he was looking at men as doomed as those who went in with the Light Brigade or Pickett’s Charge.