Days of Infamy (30 page)

Any semblance of bravado was gone. A Catholic chaplain had wandered over, and those of the faith took communion and absolution; those not of the faith, including more than a few who had been agnostic at best the day before, knelt for a blessing.

Engines were turning over, warming up. On his knee pad Dave had written down the primary and secondary radio frequencies, the call signal for his small group of Wildcats—it would be X-ray One—the estimated position of the Japanese fleet, and a ditching position the Navy had just handed off. A civilian interisland steamer off of Kauai had patched into the Navy frequency over at the newly established radio center, and asked if it could help out in any way. They were told a Navy sub running on the surface at flank speed was trying to move up behind the enemy group, but would not have time to do rescue operations if it was to have any chance of closing with the enemy. So it had to be the old steamer. It had been a gutsy move on their part. While helping a pilot low on fuel or shot up, they might be getting a visit from a Jap sub, but they called in anyhow.

There was an exchange of nods, the group breaking up, crews already aboard the B-17s, gunners mounted aft in the Dauntlesses.

Dave climbed up onto the wing of his Wildcat, almost into the cockpit before thinking about the fact that his feet had just left the earth, and he knew with almost utter certainty he would never walk on this earth again. An army sergeant helped him slide in and strap on the shoulder harness, tightened it, then patted him on the shoulder.

“Good luck to you, sir.”

He could only nod. Why was it that most of the mechanics always seemed old enough, at the very least, to be an elder brother, or perhaps even a father? The man could not see his eyes; he had sunglasses on already since they would be flying all the way into a westerly sun—yet another advantage for the Japs.

All he could do was nod, not sure of his voice.

The mechanic backed off the wing, came around in front, hands held high indicating for him to hold position. There would be no control tower transmits. First of all, there was no longer a control tower. It had been blown out in the bombardment last night by a direct hit from a fourteen-inch shell, thus proving that the Japs had either the best gunners in the world or the luckiest. Second, the transmission just might be monitored and give advance warning. As it was, they were taking off on the north-south runway. Hundreds of men had been working all day to fill in enough of the craters to give them a halfway decent takeoff run. They were to stay low, go over the island to the north, then turn west, keeping well out of visual range of
Hiei
, which was still surviving off the coast and could relay a report.

The first of the three B-17s, Gloria Ann, taxied out, followed by the other two, Pat’s Girl and Four Aces. The nose art on Pat’s Girl definitely had an appeal. The artist was good. The girl looked like Veronica Lake, her distinctive peekaboo hair style not just covering her eye but strategically placed to make sure the painting passed censors and the more prudish. The last thought on his mind would have been anything to do with that. He could barely remember how his own girlfriend looked, the sound of her voice, the smell of her hair. All he could focus on was rpms, engine heat, and manifold pressure.

Next out were the dive bombers. Struble gave him a wave as he taxied past. The lead B-17 was at the end of the runway, stopped for a moment to do the final runup; then without fanfare it powered up, starting its long rollout laden with ten five-hundred-pound armor-piercing bombs. The Navy had wanted them to haul torpedoes, but Welldon had absolutely refused on that one. They were not trained,
and were too damn vulnerable going in barely above stall speed against a target that big. He had at least won that point.

The second B-17 rolled out onto the runway twenty seconds later and started its runup even before Gloria Ann lifted off.

He caught a flicker of movement and looked down. It was his army mechanic, signaling him to roll out. Chocks had already been pulled. He pushed up the throttle several hundred rpm, and the Wildcat began a slow roll; then he gave it full right rudder to turn. As he did so, the mechanic came to attention and saluted. All he could do was raise his left hand in reply, sort of a wave. He had a feeling that he was saying goodbye to the last man he would ever see.

He followed the last of the dive bombers. All the planes were doing slow weaves back and forth, with noses high. There was no other way to see forward other than to do a zigzagging weave as they taxied. It also allowed a final check of rudder controls.

Struble roared down the runway a hundred feet off to his right, a half-ton armor-piercing bomb slung under his belly. Three more Dauntlesses followed; one more to go. He pressed down hard on his brakes, ran the engine up, did a final check of magnetos and carb heater, watching if rpms dropped. If the drop was more than 150 rpms, something was wrong, and he actually prayed something would blow out, or that rpm drop would hit, which could honorably abort him from the mission.

More than one pilot in advanced training with carrier landings and takeoffs would finally hit a panic point after two or three bad landings in a row. He could not just say he was out of it; instead, he’d nudge the throttle down when doing final check, claim a problem, and be pushed over to one side, then express mystification later when it worked OK. The air boss might look the other way once, tell the guy to get some sack time and go up later—but that was peacetime.

The engine checked out. There was no honorable way out. The Dauntless ahead of him had already swung onto the runway, powered up, and gone on its way.

Though he was a Catholic, religion was something that he had
let drop after his mother died when he was fourteen and his old man, in his bitterness, stopped going to church. But today he had taken communion, the first time in years, and he made the sign of the cross.

“Christ, don’t let me screw up,” was all he could pray. He pushed the throttle forward and rolled out onto the runway with hard right rudder and a touch of brake to turn. He straightened out, now with a good deal of right rudder. It was not a carrier takeoff with built-in fifty-knot headwind to lift him off in just a few hundred feet. He was fully gassed up, patches quickly riveted up adding a touch of drag.

He kept right rudder in to counteract the torque and rotating slipstream. His tail came up, and he edged the stick back ever so slightly to avoid a prop strike, a touch of right aileron against the twenty-degree crosswind. Air speed up to sixty; she was starting to feel lighter. Damn crater ahead, hope they packed the dirt down tight. Work crews stood to one side, some waving their caps. He rolled through the filled-in crater. God damn… a rough bounce. He caught air for a second, airspeed still too slow for rotation, bounced down hard, kept stick forward. Panic now and you start yo-yoing and wind up nosing in or ground looping.

Another damn crater ahead. Stick felt right; he eased it back just an inch or so as he hit the lip of the earth-filled crater, bounced, just above stall speed, leveled it out, several feet off the ground, airspeed now building fast, crosswind causing him to drift. Not high enough to drop a wing into it, let it drift.

Airspeed now ninety-five, end of runway approaching. He hit the switch for landing gear and airspeed really began to pick up. Start to notch up the flaps, now back on the stick.

And for a brief instant he actually did feel the joy again that had first gotten him hooked on flying three years ago, when as a sophomore in college, he had joined the flying club, which just happened to be sponsored by the United States Navy.

That little contract was a million miles and eternity away from this moment. If he had known then what he knew now …?

With no time to think about it, he banked to starboard to get around the raging firestorm of the oil tank farms, the wreckage that was Pearl Harbor. He had a glimpse of a ship turtled, its bottom punched through by a hit from a fourteen-inch shell. Someone had said it was the
Oklahoma.

Coming around the far side of the smoking inferno he could see the Dauntlesses formed up already, slowly climbing, ahead of them the three B-17s, stately, huge. At least I’m not in one of those, he thought.

They were crossing up over the center of the island, same route the Japs had taken yesterday but in reverse, he thought. Plumes of smoke still soared up from Wheeler and Schofield. Down on the road below, rolling south, was a military column, trucks, and some armored cars. It made him nervous for a second. Hopefully by now some discipline regarding shooting at anything in the air had been restored. At least with these men it had. The planes stayed low, at a thousand feet. From beyond the hills to the west he could see a smudge of smoke far off, which he thought had to be
Hiei.
Was it less than eight hours ago I was over that, he wondered. And now he was going out on his third strike of the day.

He remembered reading how pilots with the RAF last year were flying six to eight sorties a day, but hell, that was different, they were up, engaged in a matter of minutes, and if the worst happened they could land on home territory or bail out and come down next to some village where civilians would stand them a pint. He had a longer way to fly on one mission than the RAF pilots were flying all day. Furthermore, flying over open water was a lot more nerve-racking. Go down out over that enormous ocean and you’re shark food.

The thought of it made him think of the heavy .45 in its shoulder holster, underneath his inflatable Mae West. If I go down into the drink, can’t get a life raft, then that will be it, he thought.

The column was moving into a formation. His place was with the two surviving Wildcats. One of them was not even from his old squadron, a plane that had been left behind by
Lexington
for an engine replacement. He couldn’t even remember the pilot’s name. Off
his portside wing the P-40s and 36s came up, flanking the Dauntlesses to the west.

They were over the Dole plantation, the ground climbing as they headed for the pass, going through it, some serious buffeting for a moment, trade winds rolling off the hills to the east of them, the ocean visible ahead. A couple of minutes later the 17s began their stately turns, the rest of the formation following, sliding above the north shore beach.

Damn! A few tracers went up between the 40s and the Dauntlesses. He looked down, saw the gunners. No one broke radio silence, but he knew every pilot was cursing. After a day of this, a man was tempted to just maybe do a very fast and very low fly-by and strafe a few rounds, not killing them but definitely scaring the crap out of them.

The gun fell silent. They flew on, peaks to their south now shielding any possible sighting by
Hiei
or Zeroes that might be covering it. The last of the greenery dropped away; they were out over
the ocean. The lead B-17 wagged its wing, turning slightly onto a heading of west-southwest 255 degrees, then began a slow climb of three hundred feet a minute, not pushing it as they hauled their two-and-a-half-ton bomb loads heavenward. He eased back ever so slightly on his stick, checking to port and starboard, wingmen positioned correctly in a V. He leaned out the fuel mixture slightly. It was a long way out there and back, and every ounce of fuel was precious. A couple of hundred feet ahead were the five dive bombers, flying in echelon, Struble in the lead position left and forward, the army fighters on their other flank.

The air was beginning to get cooler, but he kept the canopy open. He was already soaked in sweat as he knew he would be the entire flight out regardless of how cold it got further aloft.

“JAMES?”

“Huh? Yeah, sweetheart …”

“No, sir, it’s Dianne.”

More than a bit surprised, he sat up, a few of the sailors sitting on the floor of the hangar nearby chuckling.

Not thinking, he put both arms back to brace himself as he got up, and nearly fell over on his left side. Dianne grabbed him by the shoulders.

“God damn,” he gasped, stump hitting the hard concrete floor, pain radiating up his arm.

She steadied him.

“They got another radio up, and, sir, Collingwood and the rest of the crew are here.”

James saw his boss sitting by a table where a monster of a radio was set up, dials glowing. Joe was standing behind the unit, checking the antenna lead. Collingwood saw him sitting up, and motioned for him to come over.

Dianne helped him to his feet and without asking raised his left arm, checking the bandage, sniffing it again, this time wrinkling her nose.

“You’re going to the hospital,” she announced sharply, “and I’m taking you there.”

“I’m OK.”

“Sir,” and he noticed she had dropped the James routine, “it’s getting infected.”

“Later.”

She gave him a defiant look but then finally relented and stepped back.

He went over to the long table that someone had dragged in, and sat down on a folding chair next to Collingwood, who lit a cigarette and then handed it to James, pushing over a cup of coffee as well.