Pearl Harbour - A novel of December 8th (40 page)

“Anything else?” Genda asked.

“The report from the scout plane that flew over a half hour ago. Nine battleships, but no carriers.”

“But complete surprise, though,” Yamamoto finally said, breaking his long silence since after the report from the scout plane, launched from one of the cruisers escorting the fleet, had come in.

“Strange.”

“How so, sir?”

“I assumed the carriers not being in meant that they had warning and they had made for sea. See if you can find out if any of the battleships are preparing to move. How many of their planes are up? I must know. Surely Washington must have warned them after our embassy handed over our note as planned.”

And then he fell silent, looking back out to sea.

7:51 a.m.

Clearing the crest of the Waianae Range, Strike Leader Fuchida could see it now! It was the harbor, straight ahead. So intently studied on maps, the models, photographs, all of it so stark and clear now. He could see it!

At an approach average speed of just over three miles per minute he was closing at what seemed an amazing speed. What was shadowy, dulled by morning mist, was now beginning to stand out clear, the “West Loch,” Ford Island, the naval yard, and battleship row. Already he could see three clusters, two ships moored side by side, as studied in the maps and photographs, their high gunnery-control spotting towers indeed looking like pagodas. He looked to the east. The first of the Zeroes were now directly over Ford Island, winging up, breaking into the classic split S, the diving roll into a strafing attack to clear the way, behind them a formation of Vals preparing to do the same. Not a single burst of antiaircraft fire coming up, not a single American Air Corps green or navy blue aircraft in the sky. Not a single one!

Over the harbor, the same. In the final seconds he half expected to see a swarm of their planes diving down on them, concealed above the thin clouds overhead, or lurking, circling in the mountain canyons, ready to burst out. Not a single black burst of gunfire over the harbor, which was all so closer now.

They had done it!

Pearl Harbor 07:53:30

The dots were turning, no longer dots, razor-thin silhouettes, reflected light glistening off canopies, no sound yet.

Around Watson only a few noticed, the beat-up sailor, a couple of the boys on the deck of the submarine.

A distant thump, more felt through the soles of his feet than heard. Turning to look north, it was up toward Schofield, Wheeler Army Air Corps base. Was that smoke? The first notes of “The Star Spangled Banner” drifted across the waters. The white-clad band on the fantail of the Nevada was starting a few minutes early this morning; someone must have lowered the signal flag. He looked at his watch, calculating from Tokyo time: it was still nearly five minutes before eight. Ships’ bells began to echo, flags started to go up, dozens of flags, from the smallest tug and submarine to the fantail of Oklahoma directly across the bay.

He came to attention, but still held his coffee mug, just letting the cigarette drop.

But some of the flag raisers were not watching to their duty, they were pausing, looking, pointing.

And then it struck. A multitude of sensations, all flooding into consciousness at once, each in itself near to overwhelming ... together a nightmare.

Clearing the treetops lining the north end of the harbor, a dozen planes skimmed down low, full throttle, a whining hum, heading straight for Ford Island. A winking flash from their wing tips, the sight of it an instant flash memory back to the strafing of the Panay.

PBYs clustered wingtip to wingtip began to burst into flames. One of the attacking planes, white with a red sun on its fuselage, banked sharply, sweeping toward Nevada.

the bombs bursting in air,
gave proof through the night. . .

The bandmaster started to swing his baton wildly, speeding up the anthem, as the plane banked over Nevada. Watson saw the red sunbursts on either wing.

A rising shriek, that corkscrew-down-the-spine sensation of plane engines at full throttle, half a dozen roaring in not from the west, nor north, but behind him, screaming past him, not a hundred feet away, the sound of their engines dopplering down as they raced past, dropping lower, leveling out.

He could hear the backfiring of the engines as the pilots throttled back, skimming lower. The details stood out so stark and clear. Dark green Kate torpedo bombers. The aft gunner of one looking straight at him, expressionless, red sun emblazoned on the fuselage, and strapped underneath, torpedoes.

More memories of the
Panay
, the plane soaring overhead as he floundered in the mud. My God, not again, not again.

An explosion, startling, slapping him hard, mud, water, fire rising in a column on the far side of Ford Island. A plane veering up and away from the exploding column, another plane coming directly across Ford Island, skimming across the bow of the old California anchored at the southern end of battleship row, a torpedo dropping free from that lone plane heading straight toward the huge number one dry dock, which contained the Pennsylvania.

Suddenly dozens of planes were crisscrossing back and forth in every direction.

Strange, even in the mad confusion he could identify them, the low-flying Kates with torpedoes slung, Zeroes screaming by like bullets, almost a blur, guns beginning to fire. A plane turned toward
Nevada
opening fire on the formation of bandsmen.

“O ‘er the land, of the free. . . and the home of the brave ...” The last notes trailing out, now the sound of gunfire, a Zero strafing the Nevada’s deck, bandsmen scrambling, even from that distance he could see the large flag punching and shuddering, like the body of a boxer taking blows. And that struck him in that instant with a gut-searing intensity ... they were actually shooting at the flag, the bastards!

Flags all across the harbor were hoisting up, a few fluttered back down, the men dropping lanyards and running, a few sticking to their ritual posts, the boys on the submarine nearest him tying off and then running, screaming ...

“Japs, it’s the Japs!”

Back to the Kates--it was all so overwhelming, so much to absorb.

And in those few seconds of trying to absorb so much, the formation of Kates swinging out from the narrow channel and into the loch, aiming straight for battleship row, began to release their loads. One torpedo, another, another... a dozen of them. He could see the splashes, but didn’t someone say it was impossible to effectively drop torpedoes in a shallow harbor?

But they surfaced, he could see the trail of oxygen bubbles as they streaked across the narrow loch at over forty knots, the planes continuing to race straight toward their targets then pulling up, banking away.

The white bubbling streaks foamed across the muddy harbor.

The flash was startling. In an instant a column of water soared upward from the port side of the Oklahoma, impossibly high it seemed, higher than the tall pagodas of the gunnery control towers.

My God, not my ship! Not her. He remembered in that instant the flight with Fuchida, simulating what was now happening and looked upward, wondering. Are you up there? Are you up there, you bastard!

From a quarter mile away, the roar of the explosion hit him a second and a half later, but already he was staggered by the impact, as the concussion raced across the channel, slamming into the soles of his feet as he stood at the water’s edge. Another towering explosion amidships of the Oklahoma ... he never knew a torpedo could fling such a column of water heavenward, a flash thought of that terrible force bursting through the armor plating, smashing lower decks, pulping any sailors below, most of the poor bastards still asleep, thousands of tons of water crushing interior bulkheads like a hammer blow shattering a fragile crystal.

West Virginia: another column soaring up. Arizona, though docked inward with a supply vessel anchored on its port side: two more explosions, the torpedoes passing under the shallow- draft ship beside it. Foaming waves raced outward in concentric circles from each of the blasts, hundreds of tons of water now beginning to cascade down like a hurricane blast.

The vast bulk of the Oklahoma seemed to actually lift clear of the water, hovered, then sagged back down ... more Kates screamed past him. He felt a snap whip blow, as if someone had clapped a hand next to his head, and turning saw that one of the tail gunners was swinging his machine gun back and forth, firing wildly. James felt a strange shudder, almost a detachment. The bastard had been shooting at him. He could almost see the man’s face as the plane raced away ... there was no immediate reaction within. He still stood there numbed ... another spread of torpedoes slapped into the water, more wakes. My God, more for the Oklahoma ... hadn’t she already taken enough?

Then four more explosions, four more columns of water, each several hundred feet high. The first blast had come as a total surprise to the men on that ship; few had been on deck, but now the deck was swarming with men, racing to their battle stations.

How much time had passed, he suddenly wondered. He started to look down at his watch, realizing that he had dropped his coffee mug, the brown liquid spilling down his trousers. A minute, five minutes?

The concussion of the four explosions hit him with near simultaneous blows and staggered him so that he was driven backward. Antlike figures seemed to be caught up in the rising columns of water, fire, smoke, tom metal; some intact, some just parts of bodies, men who had raced up onto the deck, some in uniforms, some just in skivvies, blown clear off the ship, tumbling through the air.

The great ship lurched like a punch-drunk boxer taking the killing blow, seeming to stagger and then just slowly began to fall. The great ship was rolling. It was beyond any horror he had ever dreamed possible, such a ship, the pride of his navy, and it was dying, the great pagoda towers leaning now over the water, the entire port side of the battleship ripped open from bow to rudder, tens of thousands of tons of water actually blown back and away for an instant by the blasts, now filling the vacuum, punching inward, bulkheads within collapsing from the force.

Oklahoma was rolling over. Her deck was now visible, hundreds of men, so antlike in appearance, the image searing into his soul so that he knew, never again could he ever see an image of men falling without thinking of this moment as they tumbled down the length of the deck. The concussions of hundreds of explosions were now washing across the harbor, other ships, exploding fireballs of dozens of PBYs caught on the ground on Ford Island were going up, dozens more at Hickman behind him. A Zero, guns blazing, racing past him, strafing the subs, a boy valiantly struggling to get the sub’s flag up, pitching backward off the deck.

But it was the Oklahoma that held him, as it continued to roll. The great pagodas, two hundred feet high, like skyscrapers twisted, groaned, and then tumbled over. Atop them he could see the horror of a half dozen men atop each, tangled up in the steel latticework beams, plummeting to their deaths.

The deck was now nearly vertical, men clinging to stanchions, splinter shields, gun barrels, ladders, some dropping, others hanging on, hundreds of heads bobbing in the water, upon which oil flames were beginning to spread.

She rolled, turning over, the three great gun turrets tearing free of their mountings, each turret weighing as much as an entire destroyer. He saw a brief instant of men in the water, holding hands up over heads as if to ward off the crushing blow ... gone, foaming muddy waves spreading outward, the deck now nearly inverted, screaming men trying to swim out from underneath, sucked back in by the tidal-like surge of water rushing into the bowels of the ship.

A foaming wave, capped with flickering fire, black with oil, rolled out and away as the Oklahoma turtled and sank down to rest on the muddy bottom ... hundreds of men, still alive, most of them dying, trapped inside. And in his feverish nightmares he could imagine the horror within. The ship in her death roll. It was his ship in a way, the way all men who love the navy feel about one ship in particular... when she was new and gleaming, smelling of fresh paint. The battle drills--he could remember the battle drills. We always knew they were drills, and the alarms would sound and those asleep would grumble awake to dog down the doors then practice emergency escape, climb one at a time up the narrow vertical ladders, unscrew the hatch in the false, or “splinter ceiling,” then you had to jackknife yourself over because the escape routes were not lined up, but rather were offset one from the other, so that a plunging shot could not come straight down through them... but it meant that those getting out would have to know how to climb, jackknife, crawl along a narrow space between the “splinter shield” or false deck above, a space not much more than eighteen inches wide, then reach the next hatch, and open it, to gain the next deck. Then up another ladder, and repeat the process again. If you were down in the lower decks and engine room, it would take a dozen such climbs to reach topside.