Pearl Harbour - A novel of December 8th (16 page)

So saying, Hirota stood up as if to leave, and Grew came to his feet as well.

“Sir. Those photographs,” and he pointed to the folder containing the images from Nanking that Hirota had left on the sofa, “will strike hard, both with the citizens of my nation and with my president. I beg you, rein your army in. You must convey to the world that what happened at Nanking was an aberration to the code of honor of the Japanese army, which in previous conflicts, such as the war with Russia, gained a reputation for fair play and honorable treatment both of civilians and captured military personnel. Though it is beyond my authority to even suggest to you how you manage your internal affairs, I beg you: a public display of discipline for all officers involved with Nanking would serve you well. That and a public apology as you have now done regarding the
Panay.
Do that and you will serve your country and, yes, mine as well, making it easier to assure peace. If not,” and his voice took on a harder edge, “such honors will turn the world against you.” Hirota looked at him coldly.

“We shall clean our own house,” he finally replied, “but we do not need the advice of others, no matter how well meaning, to bring us to that action.”

Grew nodded, unable to reply.

Hirota bowed formally, signaling that the meeting was at an end.

Grew, grasping at straws, retrieved the letter from his aide and held it up.

“This, at least,” he said, “I think will be greeted with the spirit of understanding conveyed.”

“Thank you,” Hirota replied, and with his interpreter in tow, he left the room.

Grew exhaled noisily and looked over at his own interpreter.

“Did I miss anything?” he asked,

“Sir, that is difficult to answer.”

“How so?”

“He was shamed. That is certain. I think the
Panay
situation was a shock to him and to his government and the Emperor. Yet again, some hotheads fired up with the anti-Western nationalism and racism that some of their press and leaders keep spouting. In a way it was tacit permission for them to strafe our ship, and now they are scrambling to cover themselves.”

Grew listened carefully and nodded in agreement. “I could sense that in his careful choice of language,” Grew replied, “but the overall intent?”

The interpreter fell silent.

“Go on.”

“Frankly, sir, I think the message is, we can go to hell. They will conquer China whether we like it or not. Their army is now running the show. The nuance of words chosen. He never once said that the Emperor himself was outraged, that there would be swift punishment. It was, instead, just an apology, a standard procedure here as you know.”

“Yes, I do know,” Grew replied.

Damn all, he thought to himself. Both of us are beginning to box each other in. There will be less and less room to maneuver diplomatically. The situation was getting out of control.

Nanking, China: 30 March 1938

Since he was chief flight officer to the Thirteenth Naval Air Corps, currently stationed at a captured Nationalist airstrip just outside the city of Nanking, Lieutenant Commander Fuchida’s participation in this raid was not really necessary.

But he was up anyhow this morning, dawn just breaking the eastern sky, the air smooth, no turbulence, like sliding on an icy pond, his Type-96 Mitsubishi responding to the lightest touch of stick and rudder as he went into a sharp, banking turn a thousand meters above the burning target below.

His job was to help plan operations, train his pilots, and see to the overall operations of his squadron; in private he had been sent over from the staff college to make sure that another
‘‘Panay
Incident” did not happen.

Several days after that attack, Rear Admiral Zenshiro Hoshina, chief administrator of the Naval Air Corps, had summoned him personally. “We cannot afford another such,” Hoshina started, hesitating, “incident with Westerners. It was utter rashness for it to happen. One would expect it of the army, but not of our own pilots, whose discipline is higher.” Fuchida said nothing, for after all, every navy pilot held their counterparts in the army in disdain. Let them try and land on a pitching carrier deck in a force-five blow, or for that matter carry out a disciplined attack and actually hit their targets with precision.

“So I am sending you over to ride herd on those men for a while,” Hoshina had continued, and Fuchida’s heart sank. It meant he was being taken out of his class at the War College, a definite step backward in his career.

Hoshina had sensed his dismay and smiled. “Don’t worry. You’ll still be on the rolls as part of the training here. Clear up any problems with discipline in China, and you’ll be back here in six months and finish your studies by the end of the year.”

He had sighed with relief and actually bowed in thanks.

“I’ve watched you, Fuchida. You have judgment, discipline. I want someone out there to watch things directly, to make sure there are no more such,” and again he hesitated, “ ‘mistakes’ and besides, the combat experience will do you good.”

So now he circled over the blazing village in his Type-96 Mitsubishi, fuming with anger.

The bombing had been poor. No excuse. He had already marked the crews of three of the bombers for a solid chewing out. They had obviously dropped early, their loads simply cratering paddies and an orchard.

As to the target, whoever had designated it was a fool, or, as he suspected, the enemy had been forewarned. It was obvious there was nothing down there but yet another burning village, now most likely littered with a couple of hundred dead, and not a single uniform in sight, not a single secondary explosion. If Nationalist forces had been hiding ammunition and supplies there, as Army Intelligence had informed them yesterday, requesting the strike, someone had either had second sight or found out about the raid and moved the supplies out.

Security around the base, on the outskirts of Nanking, was still far too lax. Chinese laborers working to keep the runway operational with the onset of the spring mud, coolies delivering food, even those working in the kitchen. He had tried to push them all out, to have everything done by Japanese troops, but the base commander said it was impossible. So he was willing to bet that word had leaked out, yet again.

The last of the bombers turned back to the south-southeast, ten minutes to cross the Yangtze, and ten minutes beyond to their base. As the bombers started for home, he decided to drop down for a closer look, his wingman, Lieutenant Masatake Okumiya, closing in on his starboard wing. As a squadron leader he had a radio, but Masatake did not, so it was still communication by wing wags and hand signals. Yet another thing that he felt had to be modernized at once.

Fuchida nodded, pointed to his eyes and then up, Masatake saluted in reply, pulling back up to keep high cover and a lookout in case an enemy fighter actually did appear.

There had been several tangles over the last few months with Nationalist fighters, old Curtiss Hawks flown by Chinese pilots, and reportedly there were even some Soviet “volunteers” flying I-16s for the Communist forces. He had yet to tangle with either, and this morning’s raid was as uneventful as the dozen others he had flown on so far. The few Chinese fighters that were encountered now either fled or were shot down, the 96s far superior in all respects. The enemy pilots usually kept their distance, especially when it was Japanese naval planes doing the job.

He rolled from a sharp banking turn into a split S, inverting, going over on his back, pulling the stick back sharply, easing back on the throttle slightly.

The plane was a joy, fast with a maximum speed of nearly four hundred kilometers per hour, able to go through a 360- degree roll in just seconds. As he pulled the stick back into his stomach, the horizon disappeared, and several Gs pressed him into his seat; he was coming straight down on the burning village. He could see people scattering. He continued to hold the stick back, then eased off slightly. If a student pilot had pulled this stunt with him at this altitude there would have been hell to pay, but he knew what he was doing, knew his plane, and didn’t pull out from the inverted dive until he was less than fifty meters from the ground, racing at near the VNE for the plane, “velocity do not exceed.” The moment felt good, plane stable, no tremor, the stick solid in his hand. He was now just above the road leading out of the village, heading up toward the front lines. He caught glimpses of peasants scattering in fear. He tried not to think about that. All too often the army pilots, when coming back from a mission, would empty their remaining ammunition on the terrified peasants. He had forbidden that practice and was amazed when several had questioned him one night at evening mess about the order and he found that he had to justify it, not morally, but rather as a “waste of expensive ordnance.”

There were tracks on the muddy road, the early morning light sparkling off the water that filled the ruts. And in an instant he knew. Damn, next time, from now on, someone would fly in first on these damn raids against a target that wasn’t fixed in place and check before a single bomb was dropped.

A couple of kilometers ahead was a bamboo grove, to either side the ground open, all of it farmed. He raced toward the grove and then caught a reflected glint of light. He banked 45 degrees as he thundered over the grove, and there he saw them--four trucks, crews already jumping out of the vehicles that had obviously come from the village, cut bamboo piled atop them in a vain effort at concealment, but the ruts a beacon straight to the target.

He banked up sharply, circling, gaining a hundred meters so when he went into his strafing run and nosed over, he’d still have plenty of ground room on the run in. Too many pilots had been killed on strafing missions when, so intent on their target, they forgot that to keep the target in their sights it meant they had to be in a shallow dive and not pull out too late.

He lined up on the east side of the road half a kilometer away and raced in, cover on the trigger flipped up, finger poised, ready to brush against the hard metal; just the slightest touch and the machine guns would ignite, the cold morning wind whipping past to either side of the open cockpit.

Another few seconds... a Nationalist soldier out in the middle of the road, running in blind panic ... bad luck for you, fellow . . . he brushed the trigger, ready to walk the tracers into the truck park, ready to flip sharply and bank if secondary explosions should light off.

A glimpse of the terrified Nationalist, staggering backward, rifle raised . . .

And then the blow ... forward windscreen shattering, shards of glass blowing back, wind howling at over three hundred kilometers per hour blasting his face. Thank heaven my goggles are down was the flash thought; a split second later black oil was flinging into his face, blinding him.

He yanked back on the stick, one hand up to try and wipe his goggles clear, not even sure if he was hit. Disoriented now, he looked to one side, saw he was in a high banking turn. Impossible to see his instruments, sensing the controls going sluggish, losing lift in the high banking turn, starting to head into an accelerated stall, at this altitude no time to break the stall, especially if it snapped into a spin.

His heart was pounding. He pushed the stick forward and to the left, feeding in left rudder as well, wondering for a second if the controls would even respond. They did. Rudder was working, ailerons, elevator, no damage there. The plane leveled out. Oil was still streaming back, smashing into his face, filling his mouth and nose; it was almost impossible to breathe. He fumbled for his oxygen mask. Somehow it was not clipped to the side of his helmet, knocked off, maybe shot away. Again he looked to his port side to try and orient himself. Horizon was nearly level now, sense of control returning, but smoke was now making it hard to see. The big radial engine forward was rougher by the second, a cylinder or two beginning to misfire. It was impossible to see his instruments, to check oil pressure, engine temperature, temperature. Smoke was pouring into the cockpit, smelling of burning oil.

Damn, damn all! A bullet, one damn bullet fired blindly, most likely had pierced the cowling, severed an oil line, then smashed into his windscreen. One damn bullet, and he had a flash memory of his English instructor at Etajima, the Kipling poem about the Sandhurst graduate, the thousands of pounds spent on his education, to be snuffed out by an Afghan taking a potshot with a bullet costing one rupee.

A shadow. He looked again to starboard: it was his wing- man! Up so close the planes were almost touching. He could barely make him out through the oil-covered goggles, but he could see that Masatake was wagging his wings--follow me.

Fuchida let go of the iron grip he had been keeping on his stick with both hands, waved, pointed to his goggles, shook his head to try and signal he was blinded.

Masatake ever so slowly went into a banking turn with a gentle climb.

He finally leveled out but continued to climb.

Good old Masatake was leading him home and going for altitude. Every meter gained was six meters of glide if and when the engine cut out.

The engine was getting rough. When would a piston finally seize up? He slowly worked the throttle back, dropping rpms, leaning the fuel mixture out, working cowling flaps wide to force as much cooling air as possible into the engine, a tradeoff since if there was fire the extra rush of air would fan it. If a fire was igniting, all hell would break loose, and his sense of smell was alert. It still smelled like hot boiling oil, hopefully from the ruptured line spraying onto the engine and manifold, but if it caught into an open blaze, it was time to get the hell out; and, unlike some, he had no qualms about using his parachute that others disdained as cowardice. Fools! A pilot was worth his weight in gold, in fact, actually most likely far more than his weight in gold when the cost of training him across the years was actually calculated.

But he had no idea where in hell he was, if over Nationalist lines; the prospect of being a prisoner was unacceptable. There were rumors circulating that the Nationalists were torturing then executing prisoners. It’s what we do, he thought, a grim irony, trying to argue with them that he was a naval pilot and thus different than the army. A poor excuse, he knew. No, the engine had to be nursed along.