Ghost Carrier: They Died to Fight Another Day (8 page)

When he pulled his hand away from his eyes, the Admiral took in the burning wreckage surrounding his flagship. He quickly determined that none of the carriers had been hit with the exception of the
Coral Sea
where the burning Japanese torpedo bomber had slid across her flight deck.

In the sudden momentary lull in the battle, Mullinnix shouted to his communications officer, “Any word yet from Pacific Command?”

“Yes, sir, they are just sending the secure orders in now.”

Mullinnix frowned at the officer. He knew this was bad.

“I’ll take them in my ready room,” he said and quickly exited the bridge.

The Admiral stood silent in his ready room staring at the task force’s new orders feeling equal parts relief and disbelief. The order had been transmitted via a secure channel and approved by President Willkie himself.
Preserve life. Stand down, surrender. Cease all hostile action against the enemy.

Mullinnix had to act fast if he was going to preserve remaining sailor lives. He raced to the ship’s radio room and directed the radio operator to hail the Commander of the Japanese armada. The battle was over.

The American battle group drifted dead in the water, the guns of the remaining ships left afloat silenced and their crews taken off line.

Liscome Bay
floated as cold iron at the center of what was left of the task force; sister carriers
Corregidor
and
Coral
Sea
and the destroyers
Hoel
,
Franks
,
Hughes
and
Hull
.

The ships were quiet with the majority of the crews on all ships confined to quarters as the special surrender detail assembled on the
Liscome
. No sailor could recall in any modern war when an American carrier had ever prepared for the humiliating ritual of being boarded. But it was happening, and the Japanese Admiral was expected within the hour.

Admiral Mullinnix, his uniform disheveled from the battle, stewed in his ready room.
How had it come to this
, he wondered. How had a once proud country and her naval fortunes turned so dark that he had been ordered to surrender an entire sea going task force to the enemy? He felt he had awakened in a horrible nightmare. He longed for his past. Hell, he even preferred his own denied death in the other world to this. At least he had gone down fighting.

The phone on his desk rang. He knew it would be to alert him that the Japanese Admiral was approaching. He picked up the receiver.

“Mullinnix. Yeah, right. I’ll be on deck in ten minutes.”

He returned the receiver to the hook slowly. He wondered what the surrender terms would be though he was in no position to bargain. He knew the Imperial Japanese Navy to be ruthless. They were fanatics. He closed his eyes and silently prayed for mercy, not for himself, but for his crew and the task force. There was great pain and suffering ahead. He could feel it in his war-weary bones. A tangible harshness permeated the air mingled with a bleak emptiness. His brain finally recognized what the empty feeling was – defeat.

USS
LISCOME BAY
– FLIGHT DECK

The Special Detail of twenty officers assembled with both the Naval Colors and the American flag folded and cased by the honor guard. The majority of the other officers secured themselves below deck. Mullinnix sought to spare his men the humiliation and indignity of this particular wartime ceremony. Joe Rusk, however, had found his way topside and hid back behind a bulkhead near the number two gun. He had to see this unfold with his own eyes.

All was silent except for the waves crashing softly against the hull and the curious whistling of the wind through the wires on the conning tower. As Joe listened to this sound, he looked skyward. He had never heard this eerie whistling before. It was a beseeching moan as if the ship itself was wailing for her crew. This sound made Joe’s blood run cold. Suddenly off the bow, Japanese zeros appeared in a squadron of six. They buzzed then circled the carrier in a show of unneeded enemy intimidation.

Off the port side, the diesel sputter of the Japanese transport vessel made all heads turn as the enemy ship drew near. Another sailor detail waited at the rails to direct the vessel into position along side the carrier.

Mullinnix emerged on deck in formal white dress uniform taking his place opposite the bridge. He watched the Japanese ensigns emerge from their climb up the shipside ladder onto the flight deck. They were the advance team to make certain the area was secure. The ensigns carried carbines and motioned American sailors to step back to make room. Two Japanese officers followed the security detail. Mullinnix figured these were the Captain of the Admiral’s flagship and his First Officer. They approached Mullinnix and saluted with a slight bow of their bodies. They took their places off to the right then stood rigid, eyes unblinking.

Finally Vice Admiral Yamaguchi emerged onto the flight deck. He was dressed for the occasion in formal Japanese white dress uniform with ribbons adorning the left breast. The jacket had shoulder boards with two gold stars embroidered on each. His cap was also white with a black band and center gold embroidered naval insignia.

Yamaguchi’s walk was purposeful and confident. He was all business. As the Vice Admiral reached Mullinnix, he snapped and held a crisp salute. Mullinnix returned it begrudgingly.

“Admiral, I am Vice Admiral Yamaguchi of Fifth Fleet,” he said in his perfect Princeton educated accent. “I will now accept your unconditional surrender.”

“Unconditional?” Mullinnix protested, “We are not going to discuss terms?”

“There are no terms to discuss unless you wish the annihilation of your remaining battle group.”

Joe still hiding near the number two gun and hearing the whole exchange sunk into depression. Events had progressed way beyond hopeless. Joe knew becoming a prisoner of the fanatical Japanese was a certain death sentence.

Mullinnix looked down, still not believing he was about to hand over his remaining ships and more than five thousand men to become prisoners of the enemy. “What’s going to happen to my crew?”

“You and your crew will be escorted to our detention center at Pearl Harbor. I can give you no further information.”

“And my ships?”

“The ones not at the bottom of the ocean will be added to the roster of our First Fleet.”

Mullinnix paused a moment barely containing his rage then in a booming voice shouted, “Lieutenant!”

A bewildered young Lieutenant ten yards to his rear replied from next to the honor guard, “Yes, Sir?”

“Initiate the transfer.”

Mullinnix stepped back into line with his men and allowed the color guard led by the Lieutenant to move forward toward the Japanese Vice Admiral.

Surprise and anger swept over Yamaguchi’s face as he turned and glared at Mullinnix. A Vice Admiral does not accept surrender from a Lieutenant. Yamaguchi called back to an officer in Japanese, “Lieutenant, forward! The dishonor on this day will not be mine. Accept the flag of the defeated Americans.”

An equally young Japanese Lieutenant came forward. Yamaguchi glared at Mullinnix a final time then turned and stormed back toward his escort vessel. Mullinnix seething with contempt watched him leave and grumbled, “Jap son of a bitch.”

Yamaguchi, within earshot, froze mid step. He returned and faced Mullinnix. “You have heard of the conditions within our prisoner of war camps, Admiral, yes?”

Mullinnix nodded.

“The rumors of horrors are not fabrications I can assure you.” Then the Japanese admiral shifted his gaze to the assembled American sailors and shouted so all could hear, “In fact, I would be very surprised to learn if you or any of your crew survive the month.”

Yamaguchi nodded to Mullinnix then turned briskly and resumed his exit from the captured
Liscome Bay.

Chapter 10

DAYTON, OHIO

Frank sat on the edge of the bed in his home in the late afternoon silently staring across at the framed photographs on the dresser. Everyone he had ever loved, anyone he had ever given a damn about stared back at him from the silver frames. If he couldn’t get his father back, all these people would disappear from his life. It was soul crushing.

He realized at that moment that he had spent his entire lifetime taking almost everything he had for granted, especially the people he loved. Now his very existence hung in the balance along with all the people he cared most about in the world.

Unbearable hopelessness overwhelmed him. How in the hell was he ever going to get his Dad back? How in the world was it even possible? He hung his head and a river of tears flowed. He cried in anguish, not for himself, but for the people who surrounded him and had made his life worth living. Now they were all going to disappear.

NEXT MORNING

Frank awoke with a start, his eyes bright. He had slept soundly the entire night. This was a new sensation. There had been no horrifying visions. In fact, he couldn’t recall anything of the night except placing his head on the pillow at 10 pm closing his eyes and going to sleep. His energy was surprisingly renewed. He literally leaped out of bed. It woke up Katie. She looked over at him in surprise as he danced back and forth in front of the dresser.

“Frank, what’s gotten into you? Are you feeling all right?”

“Katie, I’m more than all right. I didn’t have the visions. I slept the whole frickken night.”

“You did?”

“Damn right I did. I feel like a million bucks. I’ve got so much energy.” He continued to glide giddily back and forth across the room like a man just released from prison.

“You know what?”

“What, dear?”

“I feel like taking a walk.” He looked down at his wrist to check the time only to discover his watch was missing. There wasn’t even a tan line.

“Honey, have you seen my watch?”

“It’s always on your wrist.”

“I know, I know. I don’t remember taking it off. Only time I ever take it off is to take a shower.” He headed for the bathroom.

Katie got out of bed to help him search.

“It must be under something.”

Frank continued to slide open drawers multiple times, then peered into the medicine cabinet. Katie looked in the tub and behind the toilet. The watch was nowhere to be found.

Frank stormed out of the bathroom, anger spilling out mixed with a little stab of fear. He turned back around to Katie. “That watch is the only thing I had of his. The only thing. And now it’s gone! Gone!” He stomped down the stairs and out the front door.

Katie lingered in the bathroom. Chills traveled down her spine. She knew the watch was not just lost.
Something
had changed.

OFF THE COAST OF MOLOKAI ISLAND

Two Japanese transport vessels carrying a select group of six hundred of the captured American sailors of Task Force 52.13 steamed forward toward the brutal wind blown northern coast of Molokai. All of the sailors in Mullinnix’s battle group had been separated and sent to different sections of the Hawaiian Islands. The prisoners on these two ships were Mullinnix’s flagship crew from the
Liscome
Bay
. Standing on the deck, the Admiral could not in his deepest, darkest nightmares imagine the further horrors that awaited his crew. The transport ships were sailing toward an inhospitable island and a barren shelf of land the approximate size of lower Manhattan. The shelf jutted into the Pacific from the base of the tallest sea cliffs in the world. Three sides of the peninsula were ringed by jagged lava rocks, making landings impossible, and the fourth side consisted of the two-thousand-foot natural cliff wall so sheer that mountain goats tumbled off its face.

Adding misery and fear to the remoteness of this natural prison, this forbidding place held a sinister secret that had completely sealed this spit of earth off from the rest of humanity.

KALAUPAPA PENINSULA

Joe Rusk, gaunt and scratching a growing beard, exited from one of the hastily built canvas shelters within what they came to call “the pen” to greet his second week of captivity. He and his fellow sailors were surrounded on four sides by a twenty-foot high razor wire topped fence under the watchful eyes of a company of 100 hardened, fanatical Japanese soldiers. Joe figured these were the hard luck bastards who drew the short-straws. Their brutality perhaps sprung from their assignment to this harsh, desolate place. Even the most minor infractions, such as swiping an extra piece of bread on the chow line, were dealt with severely. The first beheading Joe and the men were forced to witness caused most of the sailors to instantly vomit, including Joe. The head was sliced clean off with a single two-handed strike from a long Japanese samurai sword. The headless sailor’s heart shot geysers of blood from the neck as the body’s hands convulsed wildly.

The worst beheading and the image that gave Joe nightmares was the time one unfortunate soul kept screaming to God for help as the Japanese soldier looming over him raised his sword for the fatal strike. After the sickening slice, the screams seemed to echo another second as the head flew through the air. Its terror filled eyes wildly blinked open and closed. The head rolled to a stop at Joe’s feet with its open eyes staring up at him.