Days of Infamy (47 page)

All within the radio hangar knew the battle was winding down, though the rest of the island was still on high alert, with rumors of invasion rampant, and other rumors reaching the base of more than one incident of backlash, of two lynchings, several shootings, and just random senseless destruction of homes and businesses. General Short, at noon, had allowed a civilian station to go back on the air, the first announcement being that martial law was still in effect, and that any acts of violence or rioting would be met with deadly force.

He was worried about Margaret and his mother-in-law. He just wanted to go home, but didn’t quite know how to pull away yet, until Collingwood finally suggested that their work was done for now and they both needed some rest.

They slowly walked to Collingwood’s car, as if both were half hoping to be called back. For two days their lives had been totally absorbed by this moment, and by walking away, they knew they were stepping away from it, that it was now in the past, something of history, rather than the pressing reality of the moment.

“How many do you think we really got?” James asked, as they got in Collingwood’s DeSoto and started back to the naval base.

He shook his head.

“Hell, you know as much as I do.”

“I’m guessing two,” James replied. “One for
Enterprise
, one for
Lexington.”

“Only one confirmed, and that was
Akagi,”
Collingwood replied. “Remember, guessing is our business, but when it comes to counting carriers sunk, I’ll play conservative.”

Akagi.
He remembered his old friend Fuchida. Fuchida had talked about the first of Japan’s carriers, his love for it. His guess was that it had indeed served as the flagship and that Yamamoto himself was most likely on board, a hunch that Collingwood agreed with and had passed up the chain, for what it was worth. If true, there was a chance that Yamamoto might be dead… and his old friend as well.

“And we lost
Lexington
, and
Enterprise
is a cripple,” James said wearily.

It startled all of them when a destroyer briefly broke radio silence, using a prewar code, requesting an oiler rendezvous, if possible tomorrow, five hundred miles to the southeast of Oahu, with Pearl to broadcast the coordinates, and then gone off the air. One could read a lot into that message. The subtext was clear. The destroyer had been escorting
Enterprise.
It had made the broadcast rather than run in with the message because the situation was desperate.
Enterprise
was most likely severely damaged to the point that it needed a dry dock, and it was slowly limping back to the West Coast, desperately short on fuel.

The worry now was that the Japanese had picked up the signal as well, perhaps had already cracked the prewar code, and surmised the same, that
Enterprise
was still alive, crippled, and desperately short of fuel… and would send a reception committee of subs to whatever coordinate was broadcast.

After several backups, a long snarl in traffic moving between Hickam and Pearl, they finally reached the parking lot where James had left his car… to confront a gaping crater fifty feet across and half as deep.

“God damn, it makes you think it’s personal,” James sighed, realizing his old reliable Plymouth had taken a direct hit from a fourteen-inch shell.

As they backed up and drove off, he remembered a clause in his auto insurance policy. “Void if damaged or destroyed by acts of war.”

He hoped Margaret wouldn’t insist upon selling his plane now, to pay for a new car. But then again, was his old beloved Aeronca Chief still intact? Or had it been shot up as well? If so, even more than the loss of the car, that would really piss him off.

They finally turned onto Pali Highway, and Collingwood drove him home before turning back around to head to his apartment near Waikiki. Still the same: roadblock, East Coast evacuated, the Japs might invade.

Neither said a word as they produced their IDs and were finally waved through.

“A guy on the next floor of my apartment keeps a Studebaker here on the island. Good guy, Josh Morris, he usually winters here from L.A., some Hollywood agent type. I got the keys to his car, turn it over for him every few weeks or so. I’ll bring it over tomorrow; you can use it until he shows up, if ever.”

“Thanks.” He was still brooding on the loss of his car, wondering if maybe since it was lost in the line of duty, the Navy might help pick up the bill. Hell, a year ago I was retired. I sacrificed a third of my pay when I was called back up.

But then again, he almost felt guilty thinking of it as they passed a block of houses, half of them burned out, a crater marking where someone’s life or lives had been randomly cut short—like millions of other lives in this insane world of 1941. And he thought of Joe, who had so eagerly donated his entire business in order to get their communications up and running again. Chances were he’d never get a dime back for his efforts, and he didn’t seem to care. He was proud of what he had done for his country.

They turned onto the street where Margaret’s cousin lived. And as always, he wondered if she had some sort of secret telescope to know when he was coming home. She was already out the door.

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow, we’ll get that other car,” Collingwood said, as James started to get out.

“OK.”

“James.”

“Sir?”

“You did good, damn good.”

He sighed.

“But not good enough. None of us did good enough.”

Collingwood touched his left shoulder and James winced. Though the infection seemed arrested for the moment, it still hurt like hell.

“That was two days ago. I’m talking about now, about tomorrow. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He smiled and got out, Margaret helping him.

“You OK?” he asked, sensing something.

“Sure,” she said forcing a smile.

He was surprised to see Dianne standing by the door, his beloved mother-in-law by her side, the old woman with her arm around Dianne. Dianne’s features had a look of exhaustion. He noticed the pistol in her hand.

Something had happened, he didn’t know what, whether it boded well or ill.

“I’ll tell you about it later,” Margaret said. “Thank God you’re home safe.”

THE SUMMONS FROM
Tokyo had come as he expected it would. It was ordered that the Commander in Chief, Naval Forces Pacific, was to report immediately to Tokyo for consultations with the government, the Naval Board, and the Emperor. By midday, a four-engine seaplane would meet the fleet to take him back.

A full squadron of Zeroes would provide escort as they flew the thousand-mile gap between Wake Island and Midway, still held by the Americans, finally to be handed off to Zeroes that would provide cover to the Marshalls. Once refueled, the plane would start the long two-day journey back to Tokyo.

He smiled at his two subordinates, sensing that they were still fuming with rage over the summons received last night.

“It is but of the moment,” he said with a smile. “Those back home wanted a war, but never truly understood the price of war, and they must be educated to it and its risks if we are to win.”

Genda started to say something but then lowered his head.

“Go on, Genda, I trust your judgment.”

“Sir, they will try to hang the loss of
Akagi, Hiei
, a cruiser, and a hundred and forty aircraft on you.”

He held up his hand, motioning for him to relax.

“And in return we can confirm the annihilation of their battleship line, the destruction of their main Pacific naval base, the decimation of their aircraft, and the sinking of one of their precious carriers, perhaps two, even three.”

“I would claim at least two,” Fuchida interjected.

“I thought the same until we intercepted that signal from their destroyer. Why send an urgent demand for oil with a meeting hundreds of miles southeast of Oahu? Surely we did not destroy all of their reserves on Pearl Harbor. Also, your brave attack destroyed the only dry dock that could repair a ship as big as their
Enterprise.
Therefore, I believe it is still afloat, crippled, and heading to their West Coast. Your gallant attack has therefore left us the chance to still finish their carrier off.”

Fuchida did not say anything.

“If it had been
Akagi’s
pilots who led that strike, with Fuchida as commander,” Genda replied forcefully, “that ship would be confirmed sunk.”

“Are you casting aspersions on the bravery or accuracy of reports of the pilots from
Soryu
and
Hiryu?”

Genda, embarrassed, shook his head.

“And can our gallant Fuchida be everywhere at once?”

Fuchida reddened and lowered his head.

“I thank the gods he was with us yesterday. His sharp vision alone perhaps saved
Kaga
from the same fate as
Akagi.”

The admiral sighed and looked out the window.

“No, I am not worried about the whining of petty politicians and bureaucrats. As I said, they need to be educated. They wanted a war, they have one now, and it will come with a price.

“If we had turned aside after our two strikes, even the three strikes on Pearl Harbor and the other land bases, then we would be
haunted with the knowledge that two, perhaps three or more of their carriers were still afloat, ready to strike back. We can confirm only one.”

He hesitated.

“And, yes, for argument’s sake for now, I’ll claim another, though I doubt it. To claim it subtly but lay the prospect before them is a gambit of the moment. Though with the foolish breaking of their radio silence and our dispatching of three submarines in pursuit, maybe there will be an additional American carrier in the bag, as they say.”

He smiled.

“It has only started. There will be more risks, more damage to be absorbed, but unless we unhinge the Americans now, drive them back with ferocity and continually defeat what they throw at us, in the long run, it will wear us down. We can not give them breathing room, time to rearm, to build anew. We must force them to continue the fight now. Hopefully our blows will be so hard that the political will that their president has so far marshaled will crumble into bitter political wrangling and casting of blame. If that happens and we continue to defeat them, perhaps with their will weakened by internal squabbling, they will agree to negotiate after all.”

Later this day, as the fleet passed south of Midway, a strike would be launched against that American base by the four carriers still serviceable, even while an attack from land-based aircraft again pounded Wake Island.

His plans were already forming: once his carriers were refueled, resupplied, and fresh squadrons loaded on board, to turn back around, and seize those two islands… and from there to enforce a stranglehold blockade on the Hawaiian Islands. They had no carriers in the Pacific, unless, as he suspected in his heart, at least one of their
Saratoga-class
ships had evaded him completely undamaged. If that were so, then he must sink that next.

Though he knew Japan did not now have the strength to invade Oahu—anyone who thought otherwise was a fool—he could still blockade it, perhaps even seize one of the smaller islands as a
forward base, and thus lure their remaining carriers to transfer from the Atlantic to the Pacific, out for a climatic battle, another Tsushima.

He thought of the report just handed to him before the summons arrived from Tokyo. Land-based planes had located the British battleship
Prince of Wales
and the battle cruiser
Repulse
and were preparing to engage come dawn. If that strike was successful, not only would it offset even the loss of
Hiei
, it would shatter British ocean power in the Pacific as thoroughly as he was destroying American power.

Perhaps then reason might prevail, concessions be made. Japan would hold the British, Dutch, and French possessions in the Pacific. American will might disintegrate, or they might fall into their traditional bickering amongst themselves and accept the inevitable. The American politicians, weary of the struggle and given a chance to unhinge the power held by their President Roosevelt, would urge compromise. They would see the gesture of returning the Philippines to them as compensation for signing a peace agreement that left Japan with its new empire intact. The subtext would be that those arrayed against Roosevelt could finally break his political power as well. A strange country, so powerful when aroused, but some within ready to turn upon the best interests of their own country if they saw political gain.

It was a long shot, as the Americans say, but then again, he had always been a gambler, and had won on more than one “long shot.”

“
I THINK IT
is time we told the President the bad news,” Winston Churchill commented to his senior naval aide as he picked up the telephone. “Please get me the President,” he asked his special secure operator.

Ten minutes later the connection on the secure, highly secret, and primitively scrambled Atlantic cable was completed, and the White House operator could be heard on the other end.

“Winston,” the enthusiastic patrician voice came pouring across the Atlantic. “It is always good to hear from you even in these difficult days,” FDR charmingly began the conversation.

“Mr. President, I am afraid I have to add to your burdens,” Churchill responded in a somber, quieter than usual voice. “We have learned that the Japanese apparently caught the
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
without air cover, and we have suffered a catastrophic defeat.”

The President could not speak for a moment. Only four months ago he had been on the deck of
Prince of Wales
, off the coast of Newfoundland, for a secret meeting with Winston. He remembered the ship fondly, and well. All those young men, the choir who had sang at the church service, the bright faces filled with pride to be hosting such a meeting. And now? Were any of them still alive?