The Twilight Warriors (28 page)

Twenty minutes later, hovering over the screen of his air search radar, Ens. Mitsuru Yoshida saw them coming. They first appeared in the scope as three large blobs, one for each formation. Gradually the blobs dissolved into groups, then flights, then individual airplanes.

From the bridge came a flurry of orders. Each ship in the task force increased its speed to 25 knots. The entire formation swung together to an easterly heading. Every gun station was on alert.

The waiting was over, and so was the guessing. They knew the form the battle would take.
Yamato
would be fighting a sea-air engagement, not a surface action against other ships. The lookouts would focus on the incoming bearing of the enemy planes.

As if on signal a veil of light rain appeared, descending like a curtain from the clouds to the sea. It gave Yoshida a bad feeling. In weather like this, airplanes were harder to see than battleships.

A
s usual, no one in Spruance’s flag plot aboard
New Mexico
could read the admiral’s emotions. The Fifth Fleet
commander was wearing his standard blank expression. Given the circumstances, he could rightly feel a mixture of disappointment and elation. One way or another, his forces were about to engage the Japanese task force.

Spruance, being Spruance, was taking nothing for granted. Maybe Mitscher’s warbirds would destroy the
Yamato
task force. Maybe not. In any case, he had no intention of countermanding Deyo’s orders. If by some fluke of war the Japanese eluded Mitscher’s planes, Deyo’s battlewagons, cruisers, and tin cans would be the last line of defense between
Yamato
and the beaches at Okinawa.

Spruance’s own flagship,
New Mexico
, was now attached to Deyo’s battle line. If there was the slightest chance of a historic shoot-out between battleships, the Fifth Fleet commander was going to be there.

A
board his own flagship
Tennessee
, Admiral Deyo and his staff were still working up the battle plan. That morning they had steamed out of the roadstead at Kerama Retto to rendezvous with the other ships of the task force.
Idaho
was leading a battleship division that included Spruance’s
New Mexico
and Deyo’s
Tennes
see. The second battleship division would comprise
West Virginia, Maryland
, and
Colorado
. Their flanks were guarded by seven cruisers and ten destroyers.

Rear Adm. Mort Deyo, age fifty-seven, was a wiry, bushy-browed battleship sailor who had fought in both the Atlantic and Pacific. He had escorted convoys in the prewar days, then delivered naval gunfire at Utah Beach in the Normandy landings and again in the invasion of southern France. Like Spruance, Deyo could still dream. He clung to the vision of a last classic surface battle with the Japanese.

Deyo had just received a cheery send-off from his immediate boss, Vice Adm. Kelly Turner: “
We hope you will bring back a nice fish for breakfast.” Deyo was in the act of scribbling his reply,
“Many thanks, will try to …” when he was interrupted by an incoming report. Mitscher’s planes had just found the Japanese fleet.

Deyo tried to swallow his disappointment. He finished the message with, “…  if the pelicans haven’t caught them all.” Mort Deyo had been around the Navy long enough to know that some things never changed: given the chance, the damned airedales would steal all the glory.

Pelicans or not, Deyo was sticking to his orders. He was taking his battlewagons north. If nothing else, he was going to earn for himself a footnote in military history. Morton Deyo would be the last naval commander in World War II—perhaps in history—to form a battle line against an enemy fleet.

I
t was supposed to be a coordinated strike, with Task Force 58’s carrier task groups supporting each other. The tactic had been used and refined since the first air battles of the South Pacific. In successive waves, strike groups from each carrier would bore down on the Japanese task force. The fighters were supposed to go first, strafing, rocketing, dropping their light ordnance, distracting the enemy gunners while the SB2C Helldivers plunged almost straight down with their heavy bombs. They would be closely followed by the Torpeckers—TBM Avenger torpedo planes—which needed all the distraction and diversion they could get when they made their dangerous low-altitude runs straight at the enemy ships.

At least, that was the plan.

The plan wasn’t working that day. There was nothing coordinated about the frenzied, disjointed air strike on the
Yamato
force. Each carrier had launched its strike force without waiting for any other. Each strike leader was trying his best to be the first to hit the target.

The first to find the task force were the planes of Task Group 58.1, from the carriers
San Jacinto, Bennington, Hornet
, and
Belleau Wood
. Right behind them came the strike group from Task Group 58.3, the carriers
Essex, Bunker Hill, Bataan
, and
Cabot
.

Missing from the task group’s complement were the planes from
Hancock
, which had gotten a late start, taking off behind the others. Now
Hancock
’s group was wandering in a fruitless search, trying to locate the Japanese task force.

At 1045, nearly an hour after the first warplanes had launched, another 106 planes of Rear Adm. Arthur Radford’s Task Group 58.4 launched from
Intrepid, Yorktown
, and
Langley
, all led by Lt. Cmdr. Will Rawie.

As each flight of warplanes arrived over the target, they had to jockey for position in the narrow band of sky between the ocean and the lowest deck of clouds at about 1,500 feet. The risk of a midair collision was almost as great as the chance of being hit by the enemy gunners.

The SB2C Helldivers were plummeting down through whatever hole they could find in the overcast, sometimes having to share the hole with other airplanes. Some of the dive-bomber pilots lost sight of their targets in the clouds, then had to make frantic corrections as they broke clear and respotted their target.

Radio discipline had gone to hell. The tactical radio frequency was a bedlam of excited chatter, pilots yelling out target locations, calling bomb hits, reporting planes going down.

The Japanese ships were zigzagging across the water like rabbits evading hounds. The destroyers, more nimble than the big cruiser
Yahagi
and the dreadnought
Yamato
, were the hardest to hit. They were also the most vulnerable, sinking quickly when they took a bomb or torpedo.

Hamakaze
went down within minutes of the first attack. Two more destroyers were trailing black smoke, moving at only half speed. They were maneuvering in a counterclockwise screening circle around
Yamato
, adding their guns to the collective antiaircraft fire.

For most of the pilots, it was their first look at the
san shiki
“Beehive” shells fired from the massive 18.1-inch guns. The shells were monsters, each weighing as much as an automobile and filled
with incendiary tubes that burst in a cone toward incoming airplanes. The
san shiki
looked like a Fourth of July fireworks display, spewing out tendrils of phosphorus and dark shards of lead and shrapnel.

The pilots noticed something else peculiar. The antiaircraft fire was exploding in multiple colors. It was another Japanese tactic they’d heard about but not seen—each ship’s gunfire a separate color to assist the gun directors in spotting their fire.

But the
san shiki
and the colored gunfire were a good sign. It meant the Japanese guns were probably not radar-directed. They were using visual aiming and ranging—and doing a bad job of it. Though they were putting up a storm of anti-aircraft fire, the gunners were missing with great consistency. A few unlucky warplanes had taken hits, but most were eluding the gunfire.

The best news was the absence of enemy fighters. It was almost too good to be true. For some unfathomable reason, the Japanese had deployed the task force with no air cover from the air bases on Kyushu. The Americans could concentrate on hitting the targets without constantly checking their six o’clock for enemy fighters.

I
t was Mitsuru Yoshida’s first good look at enemy airplanes. There were at least a hundred of them, separating into groups of dive-bombers, torpedo planes, and fighters. They were taking their time, each group maneuvering into a different quadrant. While Yoshida peered upward, what looked to him like an entire squadron of airplanes emerged from a hole in the clouds. One after the other they peeled off in a dive.

Most were headed for
Yamato
.

“
Commence firing!” The order came from
Yamato
’s captain, Rear Admiral Ariga, in the tower-top command post. In the next instant, twenty-four antiaircraft guns and 120 machine guns opened fire. Thunder reverberated through the steel decks of the battleship. From across the water came the echoing gunfire of the screening ships. The gloomy sky turned crimson with the explosions of
a thousand shells. The hellish concussion of antiaircraft fire, roaring engines, and rattling machine guns beat like a hammer on the flesh of every man aboard the ships.

Yoshida felt himself filled with a mix of terror and exhilaration. Tingling with excitement, he gritted his teeth and broke into an involuntary grin.

T
he long, gray shape of the battleship swelled in Lt. (jg) Bill Delaney’s windshield. He could see the lines of the tracers arcing upward. Puffs of flak were bursting on either side of him. The airframe of the Avenger torpedo plane was rocking from the concussion of the gunfire.

Delaney was in the strike group from
Belleau Wood
, the first to arrive over the enemy task force. He’d become separated in the clouds from the other Avengers, and now he was on his own. While circling in the broken overcast, he’d spotted something through a break in the clouds. It was the big prize—the battleship
Yamato
. With more zeal than sense, Delaney rolled into a solo attack on the world’s most heavily armed warship.

Too late, the thought struck him that it was a bad idea. Even when escorted by fighters and accompanied by other warplanes, the Avenger made a vulnerable dive-bomber. Designed as a torpedo plane, it was slow, even in a dive, and its fat shape made it a juicy target for shipboard gunners.

But Delaney was committed. Struggling to keep his gun sight pipper on the target, he released his bombs. He pulled out, skimming low over the bristling guns of the
Yamato
. Over his shoulder he glimpsed his bombs exploding in an impressive but harmless geyser off
Yamato
’s beam.

So far he’d been lucky. The Japanese gunners all missed him in his dive-bombing run. They kept missing as he bottomed out in his dive. As he was exiting the scene at low altitude and 250 knots, they stopped missing.

He sensed the tracers converging on him. He felt something
hit the belly of the Avenger like a hammer blow. He felt it again, and this time he saw his starboard wing tip disintegrate. The fuel tank in the right wing burst into flame. Seconds later the cockpit was filled with smoke.

The flames were spreading. Delaney pulled the nose up, trading airspeed for altitude. He yelled at his two crewmen, radio operator William Tilley and gunner Ed Mawhinney, to bail out.

The right sleeve of Delaney’s flight suit was on fire, and he could feel something burning under his seat. Over his shoulder he saw Tilley and Mawhinney fling the aft cockpit canopy open. Seconds later, they were gone.

Delaney clambered out onto the port wing, faced aft, and dove off. His parachute canopy opened, and on his way to the water he caught sight of Tilley and Mawhinney descending in their chutes. Seconds later, Delaney was in the water, freeing himself from the entangling shroud lines and inflating his raft.

He realized he was close—too close—to the Japanese warships. When they spotted the bright yellow raft, they’d use it for target practice. To hell with the raft.

Bobbing in the freezing water, Delaney tried to get his bearings. Tilley and Mawhinney were nowhere in sight. He could hear gunfire, explosions, and the sound of airplanes. Even though he was out of the battle, Delaney knew one thing for sure: he was going to have one hell of a view.

M
itsuru Yoshida smelled blood. It was a peculiar smell, mixed with the heavy odor of gunpowder. Then came a sound, distinct from the overwhelming din of battle, an out-of-place smack. He realized that it was the sound of a skull hitting the bulkhead. The sailor next to him on the bridge had just been killed by a hunk of shrapnel.

Bombs and machine gun bullets were raining down on
Yamato
. Her thick armor plate was resisting most of the bombs, but shrapnel and bullets were mowing the deck crew down like a scythe.
In one deafening explosion, a bomb from a Helldiver wiped out a 5-inch gun turret, shredding the bodies of all the gunners. Another bomb exploded into the radar room, killing everyone inside.

In his command post atop the bridge tower,
Yamato
’s captain, Rear Admiral Ariga, was standing out in the open barking commands. The navigation officer occupied Ariga’s seat, coordinating the battleship’s wild evasive turning and veering. At the helmsman’s post in the wheelhouse, the chief quartermaster was spinning the small spoked wheel that sent electrical steering signals to
Yamato
’s massive hydraulic-powered rudder.

The dive-bombers were the hardest to defend against because they were attacking from almost straight overhead. The gunners were having trouble tracking them until they’d already released their bombs and were pulling out of their dives.

The fighters were attacking in shallow dives, mostly dropping lighter bombs, but their machine guns were raking the ship with deadly precision. Anyone caught on the exposed weather deck was turned into mincemeat.

The worst place to be was at the 25-millimeter machine gun mounts. By the second wave of air attacks, almost none of the original gunners was still alive. Replacements rushed to take their place, only to be killed themselves. Shattered bodies and hunks of scorched flesh littered the deck.