Return of Sky Ghost (3 page)

The explosion two seconds later was twice as massive as the one that had destroyed the
Vegas,
twice as bright, twice as loud. The
Cleveland
was blown apart so completely, no piece of wreckage was more than a foot long. The ship did not sink per se, simply because there was not enough wreckage to constitute a sinking. Pieces of the
Cleveland
would later be found as far away as Molokai, some forty-five miles to the southeast. More than 25,000 sailors and airmen were blown apart with her.

The
Boston
and the
Detroit
shared similar fates. Both were hit by two massive DG-42 bombs each; both were blown to kingdom come along with their crews. Only the USS
Chicago
was spared. It was hit by no less than six DG-42s—all of which failed to explode. The bombs themselves caused severe damage plowing into the ship, killing more than 1000 people, wounding many more, and starting dozens of huge fires. But the
Chicago
did not sink, and its airplanes were not destroyed.

Even in this dark hour, it was apparent it had lived to fight again.

The second group of DG-42-carrying bombers attacked Hickam Field and the city of Honolulu beyond.

Eight DG-42s fell on Hickam—four exploded, but this was enough to obliterate the place and the surrounding countryside for ten miles around.

Eight more DG-42s were dropped on Honolulu itself—five detonated, vaporizing just about everything within a twelve-mile radius and killing nearly half a million people in the process.

With the bombs dropped and their sneak attack complete, the enemy bombers linked up again and headed northwest, leaving behind death and destruction on an unprecedented scale. High above, the B-17/52 continued circling, its crew members in a collective state of shock at what they’d just seen. The pilots were too stunned to even make a Mayday radio call. They simply did not believe what their eyes were telling them.

The American bomber would later be forced to crash-land on a sandbar near Ewa Beach; it was a tribute to the pilots that only a handful of their crew were killed in emergency touchdown. When the survivors finally made it to where Hickam Field should have been, they found nothing but four massive craters, each one nearly a mile across and a quarter mile deep.

Later on, it would be determined that in all, the twin attacks on Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field/Honolulu had lasted less than ninety seconds.

All of the attacking bombers returned safely to the surfaced aircraft-carrying submarines which had remained in a holding pattern some 250 miles northwest of Oahu.

The bombers split into groups of ten each and with great precision began landing back on the monstrous subs. The pilots, aided by a bevy of automatic navigation and control systems, flew their huge bombers into the gaping mouths of the subs, recovering on massive arresting wires located inside.

Once each ship had recovered its squadron, the huge front doors began belching steam again and then started to close. It took about five minutes for the ships to seal up. Then, along with their coterie of seven submersible cruisers, they began to dive. Inside, their commanders were radioing back to their supreme headquarters in Tokyo. The sneak attack on Pearl Harbor had been a huge success. Four of the five megacarriers had been destroyed, along with the airfield at Hickam and the city of Honolulu itself.

Best of all, surprise had been preserved for a second phase of the overall operation because the attack had gone off completely undetected. No one had seen the ships surface, launch their aircraft, or recover them, the ship commanders reported. No one left alive anyway.

But this was not entirely true.

For two miles away from where the huge Japanese ships were now slowly sinking into the waves, there was a small island called Buku-Buku. On this island, hidden in the thick underbrush, were the sixteen survivors of the USS
Neponset, the
TPB cut in half by one of the Japanese cruisers.

The American crew had reached the small island by sheer determination alone. Many were injured, two severely. These men had been carried to safety by Lt. Noonan, who lashed them together with pieces of rope and wire and then swam slowly and surely to the island, towing the two wounded men behind him.

It would be seven days before the crew was rescued from Buku-Buku.

But when they were, they would tell their superiors just how the Japanese had been able to carry out their vicious attack and then disappear, as if into thin air.

The Panama Canal

Pacific Side

R
EAR ADMIRAL ERIC WOLF
was relaxing.

It was the first time in a while—at least a few years—that he had actually kicked off his shoes, removed his thick sunglasses, leaned back in his chair, and done nothing.

The feeling was quite alien to him. He was a very stoic man, a highly professional naval officer and consummate loner. Things like kicking back and taking a nap in the middle of the day hardly came naturally to him.

But here he was, sitting in a chair on the veranda of a ten-story building, looking out on the vast expanse of the Panama Canal and the lush green jungle beyond. The air was thick and sweet, a breeze off the Pacific just two miles away made the scorching temperature bearable. Wolf fought to keep his eyes closed and let his mind wander. After all, he
was
supposed to be taking it easy.

There were some who said that Wolf was one of a handful of individuals who’d won the European War for the United States. He did not agree with them. There was only one person who could rightfully make that claim—and it was not him.

However, he
had
been instrumental in overseeing the American Forces’ defense in the Atlantic during the bleak fall and winter months of 1997, back when it seemed certain that Germany was about to invade the United States and finally win the fifty-eight-year-old conflict known as World War II. Both in his command of a sub-hunting destroyer and later as overall commander of the Atlantic Wartime Command day-to-day operations, it had been Wolf’s meager forces that had held the German Navy at bay until the war could be won, far away in Europe.

When the war was finally over and all the celebrations had died down, Wolf’s superiors ordered him to take two months R and R. He refused. Admiring his pluck, his superiors did the next best thing. They assigned him to the combined Army-Navy station at Fort Davis, astride the Gatun Locks. This was a very lazy base where many veterans of the hardest-fought battles had been sent after the war. Little was expected of the men here. Routine drills, occasional musters. But that was about it.

In Wolf’s section there were three companies of Sea Marines and Naval Infantry. In his first month here, he’d come to know just about all of them by name. Like him, most were lifers in the Navy. Just about every one of them was a hero of some sort too, or had endured wounds above and beyond the call of duty. Wolf had become close to many of them, because he’d been there himself. He knew how tough it had been in those very lean months. Now they were all getting their sunny reward.

Still, it was just not like Wolf to sit around all day, soaking up the sun and letting his mind and soul drift away. But he’d been dozing for almost a half hour now and even he had to admit it felt damn good. So good, he’d even loosened his tie and undone his shirt collar—minor violations of the uniform dress code that Wolf had never ever broken before.

But there was a first time for everything.

Sweet cooking smells drifted up from below. It was Sunday afternoon, and the base cooks usually laid out a massive meal at 1700 hours. This aroma was proof that the meal was not far away. Wolf was sleepily looking forward to the feast. After that, the base saloon would open. Tonight, Wolf told himself, waving a fly off his nose, he might even have a drink. Or two.

Things were that peaceful….

It was strange then when it happened. Wolf thought he’d fallen asleep—a first on duty!—and that the noise that so suddenly pierced his ears was actually part of a dream he was having about riding a surfboard to the Moon.

It was a high-pitched squeal, both mechanical and unearthly. It seemed to go in Wolf’s right ear and come out his left, at least that’s what it felt like in his dream. But then the noise seemed to get caught in the back part of his skull, and there its high-pitched whine turned into a full-throated scream.

He opened his eyes a split second later. What he saw looked to be still part of his dream—a dream that had quickly turned into a nightmare.

The scream was coming from sixteen jet engines. They were attached to a huge jet that was directly overhead but coming down fast. It looked very odd at first, especially to Wolf’s sleepy eyes, because the plane was coming straight down, very fast, its engines howling as they worked with gravity to hasten this dive.

A million thoughts ran through Wolf’s head in those few seconds. This airplane was not of any kind he’d ever seen. It was painted green and was larger even than a Navy B-201, the largest airplane in the U.S. inventory.

It was coming down so steeply, Wolf knew its pilots would never be able to pull up in time. This meant it was going to crash, and in just a few seconds.

Wolf felt the panic instantly rise up inside him. It was just a question now of where the huge airplane was going to crash. Would it hit the building he was in? Or the nearby barracks where he knew 300 of his men were lounging, eating a late lunch, or attending afternoon Sunday services?

Or would it hit the canal locks themselves?

The canal stretched nearly five miles wide at this point and the Gatun Locks Station which held it in place was a massive structure of concrete and steel. Bombproof, Wolf had once heard someone claim. In the next split second, he wondered if that claim was about to be put to the test.

For instinctively he knew two things even as the screaming jet spiraled madly toward the ground. This plane was not crashing—at least not by accident. He could tell that it was under some kind of control, because it was moving slightly to the west and away from him now. He also knew it was heading not for his building or the barracks, thank God, but for the locks themselves.

It hit five seconds later, slamming into the main control station and blowing up immediately on impact. The force of the explosion threw Wolf back through the plate glass window of the veranda, across his living quarters, and against the outer door. Through some miracle he survived all this with nothing more than a broken finger, a dislocated nose, and two busted front teeth.

He got to his feet somehow and staggered back toward the porch. All the windows had been blown away and the wind was howling madly through his living quarters. He stumbled out onto the balcony and beheld yet another scene from a nightmare. The huge locks had been destroyed and now water was pouring in with a great gush from the Pacific. All the support buildings on both sides of the lock station were either on fire or simply gone. The remains of the crashed airplane were scattered for more than half a mile in every direction.

Wolf reached to his forehead and came away with a handful of blood. There was a cut above his eye, but this did not matter to him now. He was slipping into shock. His brain simply couldn’t accept what he’d just seen. He grabbed his radiophone and started dialing madly. His addled brain somehow believed he could call down to the barracks next door and tell his men … well, tell them what? To take cover? It was already too late for that.

No, he must have them assemble, and they would aid in the rescue effort. Yes, that’s what they would do!

But now there was another strange sight. His men were already assembling. They were running out of the barracks and lining up on the parade ground right below his veranda. Wolf felt a surge of pride run through him. His men were already one step ahead of him.

Still bleeding heavily, Wolf ran back into his quarters, grabbed his combat pack, and started toward the door. But then he heard yet another sound, one that went right down to his toes and back up again.

Airplanes. More of them. Coming this way.

He turned on his heel and made his way back out to the porch. His guess was right. There were three airplanes approaching from the west. They were nowhere near as big as the airplane that had smashed into the lock station, but they were still substantial in size. The thought ran through his head that they were cargo aircraft of some kind. He could clearly see the national markings on their wings and fuselage. White field with a big red ball in the middle.

Japanese?
Wolf asked himself.
Really?

The three aircraft flashed by him a moment later. Each plane was trailing a plume of faint yellow smoke. Wolf watched in horror as this mist quickly settled all along the edge of the overflowing canal, coming down right on his men assembled below.

The stink hit his nose an instant later. Suddenly Wolf was doing two things at once. Two crazy things. He was simultaneously screaming down to his men to get their gas masks, while pulling out his own mask from his combat pack.

But it was way too late for his men. They began dropping even before the mist settled on them. Many had been looking skyward at the three airplanes going over and thus the fast-moving smoke entered their noses and mouths very quickly. Many were dead before they even hit the ground. Wolf barely had time to save himself. He got his mask on just before he was about to inhale a large quantity of the gas. Still the stink filled his nose and he knew what it was right away: Cyanide-sulfate. Poison gas. Lethal chemical weapons.

The Japanese were covering this part of the canal with it like crop dusters dusting a huge cornfield.

Thousands would die before the air around Fort Davis was breathable again.

The Japanese paratroopers began arriving about ten minutes later.

Jumping from huge lift planes flying very high above Fort Davis, they drifted to Earth by the thousands, gas masks in place, weapons ready to be fired as soon as they hit the ground.

But they needn’t have worried. Their landing would go off unopposed. Most of the 3,500 men assigned to Fort Davis were already dead. Those who lay dying were bayoneted to death by the first-arriving Japanese troops. It was all over in a matter of minutes. Nearly 7,500 Japanese paratroopers had landed around the damaged locks and more were coming ashore in large LSTs, landing craft disgorged by three huge troop-carrying submarines which had surfaced offshore.