Days of Infamy (37 page)

“Sir, the loss of a battleship is, in my mind, not just a playing piece of a game; it is one of the most valuable assets of His Majesty’s power,” Kusaka replied sharply.

“Are battleships so precious that they are like ancient swords?” Yamamoto snapped. “A weapon so precious that it just hangs on the wall of its owner’s home, and even if the owner is attacked, is too precious to be drawn and perhaps nicked? That is the attitude I hear.

“War is risk; war does not mean we are destined to bloodless victories. Whatever harm the Americans have inflicted upon us, we have leveled back a hundredfold.”

“And yet we lost the
Hiei,”
Kusaka replied with intensity. Frustrated, knowing exhaustion was overwhelming him, he could not let it pass.

“The
Hiei
delivered tremendous damage to the American bases before she was hit. She took out several of their destroyers and a
cruiser. She shot down dozens of their planes. And, I must add, she absorbed a first air strike that could have destroyed one or more of our carriers.”

“And you rate the destruction of a carrier as more tragic than the loss of His Majesty’s battleship?” came the heated reply.

“Yes I do!”

“I shall remember that,” and the threat was clear.

“Remember it then,” Yamamoto snapped angrily. “Yesterday morning our planes put out of action eight of their battleships, the entire fleet which we had once feared would disrupt our strategic moves to the south. Our southern fleets are now free to move without fear. I think that shows the future of where the true strength in naval battle now rests.

“Hiei
died gallantly. Her memory will not be forgotten. She inflicted far more damage than ever dreamed possible. She allowed our planes to track their
Yorktown-class
carriers and sink one, possibly two of them. If we believe a sword to be so precious it cannot be drawn and risked in battle, then why even have the sword?”

Kusaka bristled but did not reply.

He shifted attention to his damage control officer, Kijuru.

“Our status?” he asked coldly, trying to contain his anger at Kusaka.

“Sir, we will be ready to resume operations by morning.”

“Excellent work.”

“Sir, what of
Soryu?”
Kusaka asked.

“It is not good,” Genda interjected, sensing that he should somehow intervene to prevent another explosive confrontation.

Yamamoto looked over at him, as if sensing Genda’s reasoning.

“Go on.”

“We received a coded report twenty minutes ago.
Soryu
is stable but cannot yet be counted on to be ready for battle. For the moment it is out of the fight. Its surviving planes are aboard
Hiryu.
Even then, between what were the strike forces of two carriers, they can now only muster fifteen bombers and twelve Zeroes for action.”

Yamamoto made no reply; he already knew some of the details,
having looked over Genda’s shoulder while the telegraphed report had been decoded.

“How many total planes can we have ready for an offensive strike at dawn?” Yamamoto asked.

“Sir, at least a hundred and ten, with sufficient reserves held back for air cover over the fleet, search operations, and as a secondary strike if required. I suggest that the reserve be the planes on
Hiryu.
They have fought enough these last two days.”

He sat back, closing his eyes. There was no need to even look at the charts.

By morning they would be well out of range of Oahu, though perhaps if any American B-17s were left, an attack could be expected; however, that plane, though proving to be highly effective at scouting and spotting at sea, was woefully inadequate for strikes against fast-moving ships.

“Our oil supplies?” he asked, and that was definitely Kusaka’s territory.

“Barely adequate now for reaching our reserve oilers in the Marshalls. The number of reversals of course today in order to launch and recover planes consumed far more than we had planned.”

Yet again the damn reproach just barely concealed. But he was right. The northeasterly winds were blowing exactly opposite the course desired. Coming about, speeding up to launch and recover, then reversing back onto course had nearly doubled the intended distance traveled today, and still they were less than two hundred fifty miles away from Oahu.

If indeed there was still an American carrier or carriers to the west, the damn wind favored them, since they would be steaming into it.

Also, the question now was how to deploy the fleet. Concentrate?
Soryu
would not be operational tomorrow; it needed to be covered while its planes were out of action. But concentration meant contracting the search range. Or spread the force into three groups of two, or two groups of three? Keep them within mutual support range, but spaced a hundred miles apart, thus extending search
ranges out over an additional fifteen thousand square miles of ocean or more.

One side of him reasoned that whatever forces the Americans had just might try to swing north, to avoid engaging the superior numbers they knew they would be facing. The second argument was that they might try and swing south. Though his pilots were certain they had sunk one carrier to the south and perhaps two, the reports might not be accurate.

The ships to the south were definitely
Yorktown
class. A bombardier with a handheld camera had photographed one of the carriers. It was their number six, the
Enterprise.
But there was no hard evidence that the
Yorktown
was in the Pacific. Intelligence reports just before the fleet had left from Japan indicated the
Yorktown
was definitely on the East Coast of the United States. Could it have moved out here by now, or were the intelligence reports wrong?

The numerous reports that they had built their plans around were clear on the fact that only one Yorktown-class carrier, the
Enterprise
, was currently based at Pearl Harbor, along with the two older and far bigger carriers,
Saratoga
and
Lexington.
Not a single debriefing of the crews in the strikes to the south had indicated sighting those two ships clearly and unmistakably.

It meant to him that
Saratoga
and
Lexington
were still to his west. If it was those two carriers (in a sense, the sister ships of
Akagi
and
Kaga;
both of them had originally been laid down as battle cruisers but because of the Washington treaty changed instead to carriers), the Americans might very well be able to match us in number of planes tomorrow.

That realization decided it. He must keep the fleet together.

The question now was their direction. North to avoid us? South to try and link up with the American ships known to be in that area, perhaps even a surviving carrier? Or would they come straight in, seeking a fight?

I would seek out our main force, he thought, calculating it off of the position reported from their final attack of today.

We will be the target they’d seek. If roles were reversed, it would
be the one my first instincts would tell me to seek. And for that very reason alone, I would assume a shift, moving the damaged carrier into the center, protected by the others. It had been war-gamed out before when the older doctrine of matching but two carriers and no more had been changed by him to combining six, and perhaps someday even eight or ten. If one is damaged, ensure that it is protected by the others. And in reality we have two damaged ships; though his beloved
Akagi
could launch, it was still wounded and not able to sustain any more serious blows. As it was, both ships would need to be docked for several weeks or more for repairs back in Japan.

Keep the group together then, assume the Americans will come seeking us.
Tone
and
Chikuma
, his two seaplane cruisers, could be positioned to either flank, north and south, and arc outward with their long-range search planes covering the southern and northern flanks, while the six carriers in the middle with the battleship
Kirishima
moved westward at reduced speed to conserve fuel. Then, if contact was made to either flank, he could turn and run at high speed, at least for several hours, to engage. If the enemy was straight ahead there would have to be contact, of that he was all but certain.

Someone coughed. It was Genda. He opened his eyes and saw that they were all staring at him. It must have appeared as if he had fallen asleep. He looked at his wristwatch. He must have been sitting thus for thirty minutes or more, no one speaking, and wondered if he had indeed dozed off for a few minutes, Genda’s cough a polite wake-up call.

“Order
Soryu
and
Hiryu
to close on our position as we steam due west throughout the night at ten knots to conserve fuel. Before dawn we will position the carriers in a broad circle around
Soryu
to protect her with
Kirishima
nearby to provide additional antiaircraft coverage.

“Tone
to move north, seventy-five miles north of our flank,
Chikuma
to do the same to the south, launching their search planes at first light, their pattern to be in a half circle west to east. One hour before dawn
Zuikaku
will turn about into the wind and launch its search planes, and use its remaining bombers as search planes as well. They will depart fully armed, their pattern to be northwest to
southwest, overlapping the pattern of the cruisers. All of
Zuikaku’s
fighters to be launched as well to provide cover over the fleet. Once fully launched,
Zuikaku
will steam at best speed to rejoin the main group.

“Any questions?”

Genda, as chief of air operations for the entire task force, was rapidly jotting down notes, looking over at a sheet that listed the number of ready aircraft on each of the carriers.

“Sir, our numbers of attack aircraft will be cut by one quarter if
Zuikaku
’s role is to provide search and cover. We’ll have less than a hundred aircraft available for offensive operations.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“And if the Americans have two of their
Saratoga
-class carriers out there, we’d actually be outnumbered.”

“I am aware of that as well. Your point?”

“None, sir,” Genda replied cautiously. “I just wished to state the facts as your air officer.”

“Thank you, Commander Genda.”

“Are there any other questions?”

Fuchida stirred, cleared his throat, but said nothing.

Yamamoto smiled.

“Yes, I am lifting the ban on flying for my eager strike leader,” Yamamoto said. “It is just that you must promise to return safely. No more foolhardy leadership such as I heard about on the third strike at Pearl Harbor. Do we understand each other?”

“Of course, sir,” Fuchida said with a grin. “And nevertheless, I promise you two carriers sunk tomorrow, sir.”

“Let us hope it is their carriers and not ours,” Yamamoto replied softly. “Now, an order for all of us. Sleep.”

He looked at his wristwatch again.

“Six hours for all of us, at the very least. We shall need it tomorrow.”

A nod indicated the meeting was over, and the staff filed out of the office.

He unbuttoned his formal uniform jacket, took it off, and laid it
over the top of the chair where Genda had been sitting. As he did so he looked once more at the charts spread out on the table.

It had been a close-run battle today. Though he wanted to claim complete victory, the sinking of one, perhaps two of their
Yorktown-
class carriers, he knew he could not, though staff back in Tokyo, once reports were sent in, would trumpet that. It was a disease he knew was endemic to both the Army and Navy in Tokyo, to become flush with success and overstate the results without absolute confirmation. It led to overconfidence. It was possible that in reality, he had taken the harder pounding today, with
Soryu
stable but out of the fight and
Akagi
damaged. If the gods had not intervened, and the bomb carried by the heroic American pilot had exploded rather than being a dud, it could have been two carriers out of action,
Akagi
perhaps even sunk, given that the hangar deck had been crammed with fully loaded strike planes.

Regardless of all their planning, it was proving that upon such random chances victory or defeat at sea often played out.

War itself was indeed random chance, and to his gambler’s heart, it was part of the appeal.

Tomorrow chance must play to our side. If they do indeed have both of their
Saratoga-class
carriers to our west, we must find and sink them before they find us.

He stretched out on a cot in a corner of the room, not even bothering to turn off the light, just making sure first that the blackout curtains were properly drawn and secure.

He could feel the slow, steady beat of the engines far below,
Akagi
moving nearly with the wind and a following sea.

There was barely enough oil for one more fight. He had hoped it would have been today that finished it. It had not been. If he was forced to come around several times into the wind and run defensively at flank speed against incoming attacks, the situation with oil would become extreme. It might prove necessary to order one or more of the reserve tankers out of the Marshalls to meet the fleet the day after tomorrow—a risky move, given that reports had come in that the first attempt to take Wake Island had failed. That base was
still in American hands, and Midway, as yet untouched, was dangerous as well. The fleet would have to thread between the two to reach the Marshalls. Sending a lone tanker without escort to meet them was a risk he would have to ponder.

Yet another gamble.

Draw that card tomorrow when it is time, not before, he thought, and within another minute, following his own orders, he drifted off to sleep.

REAR ADMIRAL NEWTON
walked the open deck of
Lexington
, rising, dropping in a slow rhythmical roll, the Pacific living up to its name this evening after so many days of rough seas, long gentle swells that if one was in a bunk could somehow carry one back to a long-suppressed memory of a cradle rocking. Though he was not even conscious of it as he walked, he wondered if perhaps that was part of the reason men could so love their ships, speak of them as “her,” for that gentle rocking carried with it a primal memory, an ancient rhythm of peace.