Annapolis, page 64
“It is hard. My Edward’s out on patrol,” said Spruance. “But Margaret and young Margaret are back in San Diego.”
“At least you get to fight. That takes your mind off the worry.”
“Don’t worry about Billy or Tom. But your other son, Jack, he’s a reporter, isn’t he?”
Will nodded, as if ashamed to admit the black sheep.
Spruance looked down at the dock. “That could be a problem.”
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Jack got the bad news, right on the Big E.
Morale mattered, and even though the Enterprise was preparing for battle, Nimitz had come to the ship to bestow decorations in an honor ceremony. Jack had climbed the island for the best view of the crew assembled on the flight deck, of the band playing “Ruffles and Flourishes,” of the guests of honor, front and center—eleven officers and one very proud Negro messman.
Jack was describing Dory Miller’s fullback shoulders and big hands, which looked even bigger in contrast to his dress whites, when his father appeared on the island. “Did you ever see anyone happier than that Dory Miller, Dad?”
“He deserves what he’s getting,” said Will. “He always did.”
“So… what’s up? We’ve got Spruance bringing his flag aboard. A forty-eight-hour turnaround. They’ve topped off every tank on the ship.”
“A lot of gas.”
Jack flipped through his notebook and reported the exact amounts: 19,080 barrels of fuel oil and 82,485 gallons of aviation gasoline. “And they’ve had sailors packing ammunition belts with shells, balls, and tracers around the clock,” he added. “What’s happening?”
“I can’t tell you exactly, Jack, but—”
“All right, all right.” Jack laughed. “I’ll let the Japs surprise me.”
“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen, son. Ray Spruance doesn’t want reporters on his ship.”
If someone had told Jack Stafford, five months before, that he would feel as angry as he did at that moment, he would have laughed. “I’ve been with this team since the beginning, and now I’m cut before the big game?”
“You’ve got a new manager. He doesn’t like publicity and thinks journalists are a distraction to a fighting ship.”
“Goddammit!” Jack slammed his hand so hard on the rail that several sailors on the deck below looked up.
“Get off the bridge,” whispered his father through clenched teeth.
“I’d like to tell that sour-faced Spruance—”
“Say anything out of line and you’ll be back in New York, covering Harlem tenement fires. Just go get your gear and get the hell off the ship, or Halsey won’t ever take you back.”
Jack shoved his notebook into his back pocket and smoothed his overseas cap. This fight was lost, but there would be others. So he decided to make a graceful exit. And he resolved that he’d find a scoop of his own right there at Pearl Harbor.
ON THAT SAME day, Hiroaki Tanaka stood on the sunny bridge of the Akagi as she steamed through the Bungo Strait. For the forthcoming invasion, Hiroaki had been advanced to the staff of his old friend, Chuichi Nagumo, commander of Kido Butai, which now comprised four Pearl Harbor carriers—Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu—along with destroyers, cruisers, and battleships.
Some on Nagumo’s staff resented having one of Yamamoto’s men on the bridge. Perhaps Captain Tanaka was a spy rather than a liaison between Kido Butai and Yamamoto’s main body of battleships, following several hundred miles behind.
But Admiral Nagumo welcomed one whose son had just joined the First Air Fleet. That, of course, was the real reason Hiroaki had requested this assignment. He wanted to be close to his son, Minoru, now aboard Akagi.
Nagumo wore a little gray mustache and set his jaw like a pugnacious bulldog, but there was a trace of diffidence in his eye that Hiroaki had always liked. It made him careful. Even if Nagumo had made too quick a withdrawal from Pearl Harbor, his carriers were still afloat and ready to do more damage.
It was Navy Day, anniversary of Tsushima Strait, a good omen for the fleet. And the “victory” at Coral Sea, in which fliers reported sinking both the Lexington and the Yorktown, had raised morale to new heights.
Still, Hiroaki was bothered.
High morale had become overconfidence, which led to a complex plan calling for Kido Butai to attack Midway ahead of the troop transports and Yamamoto’s main body, while submarines set up pickets at Oahu, aerial reconnaissance monitored Pearl Harbor, and a secondary force struck the Aleutians. Complexity caused lack of focus: Was their goal the extension of a defensive perimeter or a decisive battle with the Americans? And what if the American fleet appeared before they took Midway’s airstrip?
Hiroaki could not know that the plan was already spinning out of control: Their code had been broken. The Yorktown was under repair in one of the Pearl Harbor drydocks that Nagumo had failed to destroy. An American seaplane tender had anchored at French Frigate Shoals, where the Japanese had planned to refuel their reconnaissance planes, meaning there would be no overflights of Pearl Harbor. And the submarines would reach their stations too late to catch the American carriers.
Had Hiroaki seen how these ironies were accumulating like snowflakes on the roof of the Imperial Palace, he might even have composed a haiku.
But the day was too brilliant, the headlands of the Bungo Strait too beautiful for bad thoughts. Even careful Nagumo displayed his confidence, telling Hiroaki that he believed the enemy lacked the will to fight.
It was then that Hiroaki remembered boxing in the moonlight with Will Stafford, and he remembered how relentless the American had been, even in defeat.
IN WASHINGTON, SUMMER had arrived and, with it, a letter from the new commander of the Asiatic Submarine Fleet, Charles Lockwood. He had read patrol reports describing torpedoes that ran too deep or failed to explode. He was convinced that something was wrong and wanted the Bureau of Ordnance to conduct tests.
It fell to Captain Dennis Dawson to respond.
He called Maureen Stafford to his office. She had moved quickly up the secretarial ladder at BuOrd, her shorthand skills as admired as her long legs.
Dawson was standing by a window that looked out onto somebody else’s window across the street. He gave her that smooth smile. “Take a seat, Miss Stafford.”
“Mrs. Stafford.”
“I forgot. In wartime, in this city, we all seem to forget sometimes.… Tell me, Mrs. Stafford, do you like your job?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. I want you to be comfortable. Ample break time and so forth.”
She had stopped crossing her legs when she went into his office. She couldn’t stand his eyes, probing toward her nylon-covered thighs like a hand. Now she kept both feet planted firmly on the floor. “I don’t need breaks, Captain. The harder we all work, the sooner I’ll get my husband back.”
“Then let’s get to work.” And whatever anger he felt at her went into his letter:
The answer to your query, Admiral Lockwood, is simple. The torpedoes do not run too deep. And the Mark VI exploders are as good as anything the Nazis are using. I should know. I helped to develop them. When your skippers learn to attack a ship and fire a torpedo properly, they will have the kind of success that their weapons systems guarantee.
As for the tests you propose, sir, they are highly unscientific. Torpedoes cost $10,000 apiece. Shoot them into enemy ships, not into nets to check how deep they run.
“That should shut him up,” said Dawson. “We’re here doing our damnedest, and they think all we do is play golf and chase skirts.”
“Whatever would give them that idea?”
THE NEXT DAY, Task Force 16—Enterprise, Hornet, their destroyers and cruisers—streamed past the shattered battleships, past the Yorktown in her drydock, and out into the Pacific.
Will Stafford and Jack stood by the submarine pens and watched them go.
“I wish I was going with them,” said Will.
Jack laughed a bit and said, “So do I.”
“After this fight,” said Will, “I’m putting in for a cruiser command.”
“What will your policy be about reporters?”
“What’s good for the U.S. Navy is good for the U.S.A.”
Jack pulled out his notebook. “Let me write that down.”
Just then, a flight of Dauntlesses came roaring over. One of the planes dipped low and tilted its wings as it went past.
The number on its fuselage was 6S2. Billy’s plane.
ix
War in Three Dimensions
As the eastern sky silvered toward dawn on the morning of June 4, 1942, the carrier Akagi turned into the wind and prepared to launch planes. Kido Butai was some two hundred miles northwest of Midway.
Hiroaki Tanaka was filled with pride and apprehension both. Nine Zeros and eighteen dive-bombers were revving up for the launch, and his son Minoru was the fourth Zero in line.
At 0230 he had sat with Minoru in the flight mess and eaten the traditional meal served to a Japanese warrior on the morning of a battle—rice, soybean soup, dry chestnuts, and sake.
Talk in the flight mess had been high-spirited, for all the fliers believed this would be an easy run. Minoru had tried to keep up the conversation with his father, a sure sign that the boy was more nervous than he wished to appear. But Hiroaki had remained calm and, in fatherly fashion, acted more stern than he felt.
After the meal, Hiroaki had gone back to his cabin, and there he had tied around his son’s waist the ceremonial belt of a thousand stitches, embroidered by his mother with a Rising Sun and the image of a tiger—a thousand stitches, so the custom went, made by a thousand passersby in the street, who sent a thousand prayers and a thousand wishes for good luck.
Minoru, taller than his father, had bowed solemnly. Hiroaki had bowed in return and remained bowed much longer than a father should bow to his son, so that his son would not see the tears that filled his eyes.
And now the air officer was waving his green lantern and the first Zero was shooting down the deck, past the Rising Sun painted on the forward elevator.
And from the deck crews below came the roar, “Banzai! Banzai!”
Hiroaki watched the Zeros streak toward Midway, their taillights like a long string of gleaming garnets, and he prayed that all would return.
ENTERPRISE, 250 MILES NORTHEAST OF MIDWAY, 0445
“Did you hear the one about the guy who brings his dog into a bar and says, ‘Hey, who wants to bet my dog can talk?’” asked Charlie Osterhausser.
“That joke stinks,” said Lieutenant Bill Stafford.
Twice they had gone to their planes. Twice they had come back. Now they churned about the ready room in lightweight khaki flight suits and yellow Mae Wests, riding their own currents of caffeine and adrenaline.
Bill poured his fifth cup, black and hot.
Wade McClusky said he’d be pissing down the pipe as soon as they got into the air.
“Whenever that is,” answered Bill.
“Spruance can’t launch till he knows where they are,” said McClusky. “Then we go together.”
Coordination was all in an aerial attack: torpedo planes came in at two hundred feet while dive-bombers struck from twenty thousand, and enemy defenses were split. But torpedo planes had to reduce their speed and fly a straight course across the water. Without fighter protection, they were the biggest clay pigeons in the air.
Lieutenant Gray commanded VF-6, the fighter squadron. He said, “We’ll fly at fifteen thousand feet, just below the bombers. If the torpeckers call for help, we’ll drop in a flash. So nobody needs to worry.”
“Right. Right.” Bill had been over it all a hundred times, but a hundred and one didn’t hurt. “We all go together, or they can take us on one at a time.”
“Right,” said McClusky.
“So, anyway,” said Charlie, “the bartender tells him, ‘Dogs can’t talk…’”
Akagi, steaming southeast, 0500
The sun was up now, as big and red as the imperial symbol itself.
A sailor handed Hiroaki Tanaka a message that had been flashed by beacon from the cruiser Tone: “Scout Plane Four is now airborne.”
Nagumo glanced at the message but showed no emotion.
“That plane was ordered to launch at 0430,” said Hiroaki.
“The Tone’s catapult is sometimes unreliable,” said another officer.
Hiroaki looked at a chart that showed the vectors the cruiser scout planes were supposed to fly. If he were Halsey, and if he had come to Midway, he would put himself there—northeast of the island, two hundred miles out, at a bearing of about 95 degrees—just five degrees from the course to be flown by Scout Plane Four.
“What worries you?” asked Nagumo softly.
“We have had no reconnaissance of Hawaii, sir. And now Scout Plane Four launches late. If American ships—”
Nagumo nodded. “I have kept forty planes armed with torpedoes. If we sight American ships, we will strike immediately.”
Hiroaki wished they had that new radar. He wondered if the Americans had it.
Enterprise, steaming southwest, 0600
They did. It was not good enough, however, to show distant surface activity, and as yet it showed no Japanese planes.
Wade McClusky went up to flag shelter and took Bill Stafford with him to relay any news to the other fliers, who were growing more nervous by the minute.
The sun was coming in the windows in flat new earlymorning rays.
Spruance was sitting in a padded seat on a small pedestal. He was hatless and tieless, too. He had stopped wearing a tie on the day that Nimitz took his off. The officers around him had taken their ties off soon after Spruance did.
Miles Browning, Halsey’s bad-tempered chief of staff, started to berate the fliers for entering unsummoned, but Spruance stopped him. “It’s all right. They should know what’s happening.”
Browning scowled and turned his attention once more to the loudspeaker above him, which was tuned to Midway’s scout-plane frequency.
“One of the Midway PBYs reported a sighting about thirty minutes ago. Enemy carriers,” said Spruance. “Now we’re waiting for a positive location.”
And there it was. The speaker crackled and spit: “Two carriers and battleships, bearing 320 degrees, distance 180, course 135, speed 25.”
The officers leaped for charts and spreaders. The PBY scout had given the navigation figures for Midway. The figures now had to be calculated for the American carriers which were part of a giant triangle, with Midway on the bottom, the Americans on the upper right, the Japanese on the upper left.
It was done, then done again, then given to Spruance.
He wrote the figures on his maneuvering board and calculated the distance between his task force and the Japanese. “One hundred and seventy-five miles.”
“Yes, sir,” said Browning.
Then without so much as a deep breath, Spruance said, “Launch the attack.”
Launch? Bill Stafford wanted to shout. But he kept his mouth shut. Fighting spirit was one thing, but launching at maximum combat range for the Dauntless or Devastator torpedo plane? If they made it back, they’d be flying on fumes.
Spruance’s face was impassive. As if he knew what Bill was thinking, he said, “We all have jobs this morning, gentlemen. Get to yours.”
And Bill realized he was not one of the gods of the flight deck, just a cog in a machine, a machine oiled by commitment and by the kind of cool professionalism displayed by Spruance… and by blood.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said McClusky, back in the gangway. “But he’s right, and he’s a bigger gambler than Halsey. He’s throwing everything at them and hoping they don’t find us in the meantime. We deliver maximum damage or we get our asses kicked.”
“At least he’s decisive.”
A HONOLULU BROTHEL, 0645
Eddie Browne woke next to… no one. The bed was empty. His head was pounding. His mouth felt as if someone had stuffed it with a chamois cloth.
He grabbed his pants and checked his wallet: empty.
He jumped up and stuffed a foot into one of his trouser legs. Then he felt that strange sensation at the base of his skull, half pain and half wooze, that told him he wasn’t hung over yet: he was still drunk. So the natural thing to do when he stumbled was fall.
In the next room, Queen Loretta was swinging a leg over Jack Stafford. “This one’s on the house, baby.”
“What the hell was that?” said Jack, hearing something against the wall.
“Don’t worry about it. Big spender like you don’t need to worry ’bout nothin’.” Queen Loretta was a beautiful coffee-colored woman from Baton Rouge, who, with a high-demand wartime skill, was quickly becoming one of the richest women in Honolulu. She pressed her breasts to his face, and… the door slammed open.
There was Eddie, pulling on his pants. “I’m on the duty roster at 0900, and all my money’s gone. One of these bitches robbed me.”
“Say, now!” Loretta jumped up and wrapped herself in a robe. “I don’t run no clip joint. You upped for a whole night. Two hundred bucks.” She jerked a thumb at Jack. “Him, too.”
Jack grinned. “That’s the truth.”
Eddie ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, yeah… Well… we have to go. I have to get back to Station Hypo.”
“Station Hypo,” muttered Loretta, “sounds like where y’all belong.”
Eddie looked at her with dull drunk’s eyes. “You never heard of Station Hypo.”
Jack pulled on his pants, then stuffed a ten into her hand. “Go get your hair straightened, honey. On me. And forget what Eddie just said.”
“Hell, sugar. I can’t even remember that boy’s name.”
“So,” said Jack when he and Eddie went squinting out onto North Hotel Street. “You were awful touchy about Station Hypo.”
“Of coursh I’m… Jesus!” He wobbled a bit, then lurched ahead. “Of course I’m touchy. She may run the best house in Honolulu, but she could be a Jap spy.”
Jack grabbed him by the elbow and steered him up the street, past noisy bars and the storefronts where sailors were lining up with five dollar bills in their fists, even at seven in the morning.
