Days of Infamy (26 page)

“I studied your speeches,” FDR replied cheerfully, and Winston chuckled in reply.

“Mr. President, what is the latest word regarding your aircraft carriers? We have monitored reports from our radio facilities, and frankly we are filled with concern.”

There was a pause.

Though the line was secured—they were both assured of that—nevertheless, both knew and understood caution.

“I must be frank and admit that at this moment, I know nothing more than you do. Radio silence is being maintained by all ships
involved. All we know for certain is that our planes have crippled, perhaps sunk one of their battleships, and crippled, perhaps taken out a carrier as well.”

“First blood then,” Winston announced with enthusiasm. “Bravo for the American Navy.”

“It is small retribution so far for what they did to us,” and he could sense the determination in Franklin’s voice.

“It is only the beginning, the first step. When this is finished, when this is done, you and I will meet in what is left of Tokyo to dictate the terms of surrender.”

He paused but for an instant.

“As we shall also do in Berlin.”

A pause now on the other side. He was at the core of the issue. He had prayed that perhaps, just perhaps, Franklin would simply take the plunge and add but two more words into his demand for a declaration of war:… “Germany.” “Italy.” He had not done so.

“In due time, Winston, in due time, but for the moment I have done all that I can do. Perhaps Herr Hitler will now do us a favor.”

“I think that guttersnipe will do the job for you,” Winston replied. “He’ll think you’ve taken a knockdown punch and will now want to join in. Just like a jackal after a lion has made a kill. Mark my words.”

Again a pause.

“We shall see, Winston, let us hope so.”

“Is there anything at all England can do now to help you?”

“At this moment, no. The situation is still not clarified in those waters. I’ll be certain you are kept posted as the reports come in.”

“As I shall with you. I can say that two of my big friends are planning a visit against them.”

Regardless of how secured the line was, he would not actually say the name of the two ships involved, but knew the man on the other end of the line would know.

“I wish them God speed, and my prayers are with them.”

“Thank you. And I have a suggestion that might help our planning
in this new situation. My schedule over the forthcoming holidays is not yet cast in stone. I think it is time that you and I, and our staffs, meet to plan out a joint response”—he paused for a brief moment—“to all the threats that will have clearly developed by then.”

“I would be delighted for the visit,” and Winston could read the slight note of hesitation. Of course Franklin would hesitate, especially if Germany did not declare war on America by then. Japan, no matter how perfidious the attack, must be the secondary concern of the moment. Hitler was literally at the gates of Moscow, and regardless of Stalin’s assurances to the contrary, if that city should fall before Christmas, chances were the Soviet resistance would collapse, and by spring, England would again be standing alone—unless it could count America on its side.

“It is late here, sir, so I will sign off. So we are agreed upon a visit and some time to chat. I’ll have my staff start immediate coordination with yours. Perhaps several days before Christmas would be good.”

“Eleanor and I will be delighted to see you. Plan to stay at the White House with us.”

“Good, then it is settled. God be with you and your men this day.”

“And also with you and yours.”

“Until later then, my naval friend,” and he waited until the carrier signal went dead, signaling the connection had been closed down.

He sat back in his chair and puffed another cigar to life, pouring a little scotch into a lot of water and sipping it slowly.

Damn all. Franklin still would not commit to Germany. If Hitler did play it smart now, he’d make some sort of gesture to America, a promise, of course to be broken later, that he was withdrawing all U-boats from the western Atlantic. Do that and the America First crowd would cheer, saying they could now go after Japan hammer and tongs, and worry about the Nazis later.

Still, even to have America in half of the world war was a step in the right direction, and now he would have to calculate how to make maximum use of that development. He smiled as he closed his eyes and began to imagine various stratagems to be used in Washington over Christmas.

“CQ, CQ, CQ
. This is Kilowatt Two, George Easy Charlie, broadcasting out of Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.”

James Watson was stretched out on the concrete floor, resting on a wool blanket, half dozing.

A crowd was gathered around Joe and the multiband rig he had just finished installing in the only hangar on the base that had survived the air strikes and naval bombardment.

“CQ, CQ, CQ …”

Joe began his call again, tweaking the dial slightly, on to a frequency the army operators told him was always monitored out of the naval base at Mare Island and the Presidio in San Francisco.

He sat back, looking up at the aerial rig running up to a hole blown through the ceiling. Out on the roof some young sailors had cobbled together an antenna.

Farther down the table two more short-range radios were already up and running, one for guiding in air traffic, the other for general purpose
monitoring of naval ship-to-shore transmissions. A noisy diesel generator outside was providing the power.

“CQ, CQ, CQ …”

He switched off to receive and waited. The carrier wave hissed and crackled. A momentary signal, garbled, not English… and then a clicking, a voice drifting in, dropping off, drifting back in again.

“Kilowatt Two, George Easy Charlie, we read you. This is a friend stateside. Who are you?”

James sat up, attention focused. Now the game would begin. Was it the Presidio or Mare Island monitoring station?

“Stateside friend, are you in San Francisco?” Joe asked.

“A question back, Kilowatt Two, are you who you say you are?”

As the senior rank present, with Collingwood passed out on the floor, dead asleep, James realized he had to step in yet again. He sat up wearily and went over to the desk, motioning for Joe to surrender the chair. This young man had done a remarkable job and yet the kid, born in Japan, did have an accent that, well, sounded Japanese. Joe did not resist as he stood up.

Several sailors slapped Joe on the back, thanking him. Interesting, James thought. When I brought him in here, holding up the fake orders from CinCPac giving him access to the base, he was met with barely concealed hostility. But after we worked together for a couple hours, that melted away. Joe is now “one of us.”

He wondered if Margaret and her mother were OK. Already there were rumors circulating that all Japanese and those of Japanese descent on the island were to be rounded up and placed in isolation. My God, if they did that, he had announced loudly, he’d go to the damn camp with them.

So far it was only rumor, but what was not rumor was the report that two Japanese males had been shot to death down on the beach along the southwest coast where crowds had gathered to watch the smoke plumes from the Jap battleship that was out there, and still burning. Some damn national guardsman claimed he saw them with a radio in their car, leveled his BAR, and fired. The radio, pulled out of the wreckage, was nothing more than a standard civilian shortwave set, unable to transmit.

He could not think about any of that now. He sat down before the radio. Joe indicated the proper switch, and he threw it.

“Stateside friend, this is Commander James Watson, United States Naval Reserve speaking. I was stationed at,” he hesitated, “CinCPac, until it was hit yesterday.”

“Kilowatt Two, how do I know that for certain? The last voice sounded like a Jap to me.”

He looked over at Joe, who said nothing, eyes suddenly impassive.

“By the way, Kilowatt Two, you know West Point always whips Annapolis at football.”

He smiled. A tipoff. They were linked to the Presido, if indeed it was an American station and not a damn good clever Japanese trap.

“Give him your serial number,” Dianne said, “name a few professors you had at the Academy and classmates. It’ll take time, but they can run a check.”

He should have thought of that. There was no way in hell he could say over the open air that he was a cryptologist, a code breaker. The Presidio was Army, but surely they’d have a land line open to Annapolis, to Washington.

“Stateside friend, it’s Navy that can carry the ball.” He paused, hoping they’d figure out the obvious, that they were talking to someone in the Navy. “Now, take this down,” and he did as Dianne suggested, adding that they could check his pilot license number and the registration number of his small Aeronca Chief, the number being something that if he was a prisoner, the enemy would most likely not think to ask about.

“Get back to me, we’re keeping this frequency open. And while you are at it, stateside friend, you damn well better prove to me who you are as well.”

He clicked off and sat back. The carrier wave was still on. More garbled transmissions drifting in and out, what sounded like jamming for a moment. Are the Japs on to us? He stood up, took a cigarette from Dianne, who had already lit it, and walked the few dozen feet out to the open hangar door.

A bulldozer was working back and forth across the huge concrete landing strip. The main runway was so wide that planes could easily maneuver around the cratering. A bunker loaded with munitions had survived, including some armor-piercing bombs and torpedoes. There was also an av-gas tank, buried underground, loaded with twenty thousand gallons, which had miraculously survived as well.

He watched a B-17, having made the short hop from Wheeler, come into the pattern, turning from base leg onto final approach, lining up. Damn good pilot, coming in a bit hot because it was a crosswind landing, touching down with two wheels, keeping his tail high for better control, plane rolling out for a thousand feet until finally letting the tail settle. A slight swerve, which he corrected, and then he rolled out to the north end of the runway.

The east side of the runway was being used as hard stands; a fuel truck and a couple of deuce-and-a-halves were waiting. Dozens of Army Air Force personnel gathered round, ready to manhandle off the bomb load, each bomb or torpedo with canvas slings under it, and physically carry them to be hoisted up under the plane. No one could find any surviving trolley cars that were designed to move heavy ordnance around, pulled by a small tractor or truck. So every weapon, the torpedoes weighing nearly a ton, had to be manhandled into position, a damn dangerous job.

Two P-36s passed overhead, flying in slow circles, the only air cover available if another strike should come in.

“KILOWATT
Two, Kilowatt Two …”

“They’re back,” Joe shouted, and James stubbed out his cigarette and went back to the radio.

“Kilowatt Two here.”

“You check out OK. And your plane, it’s a fifty-horse Chief, registration number 776 BX.”

He chuckled.

“Stateside friend, wrong on that one. It is 777 BX, upgraded to sixty-five-horsepower.”

A pause and then a different voice came on.

“Kilowatt Two, this is Colonel O’Brian, United States Army, chief signals officer at the Presidio. You are the same Commander Watson with a hook?”

“The same. A souvenir from our former friends.”

“When did you get the hook and which hand?”

“Panay
, and it’s the left hand.” He almost wanted to add “damn it,” but he didn’t blame O’Brian; he was just being cautious.

He had a memory of this man, who held a position similar to his, monitoring Japanese transmissions. They had met at a joint Army-Navy meeting six months back, which was supposed to be for the sharing of information on Japanese codes and had turned, instead, into something of a protective turf battle on both sides. He remembered O’Brian, liked him, sitting in the back row, disgusted as the generals and admirals argued back and forth.

“O’Brian, you have red hair, do you not?” James asked… in Japanese.

“I’m bald headed, you bastard,” O’Brian replied back in the same language.

“We’re on the same wavelength then,” James responded with a laugh.

“The same, Kilowatt Two. Kilowatt Two, it seems you are our only link.”

That was perhaps giving away too much to anyone listening in, but he realized it was undoubtedly the truth. It was reported it could be days before the cable transfer station was repaired. By either incredible skill on the Japaneses’ part, or the worst damn luck for our side, a fourteen-inch shell had blown the cable access link where the heavy wires that supported civilian and military traffic back to the mainland came out of the ocean and were tied into the mainland, severing all the lines.

The pounding at both Hickam and Pearl had taken out their transmission centers as well. Wheeler had always relied on a land link to Hickam or the cable for linkage back to the States. Its base radios were short-range only.