THE SECOND WORLD WAR
In the first twenty years after the World War II any serious discussion of the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought one question, "Did the American Government have prior knowledge of the Japanese intentions?" As a student of the history of the era, I have no doubt Roosevelt and Hull knew as well as quite a few others in our government. This premise raises a very serious question. Did these men lack the will to do something or did they feel that taking action at that time wouldn't be prudent? I personally believe they could not bring themselves to act, still hoping against hope on that fateful day. Like others I've asked myself, "What if they'd dispatched the fleet on December 6, 1941 to meet the threat? What if a firm response had been made?" Many believe the Japanese thrust would have been blunted. I don't share that view. In December 1991 my son and I spent about three hours debating the results of such action, this book is the result of that interchange. He thinks I paint too bleak a picture but I remind the reader of the battles from Pearl to the Coral Sea. The American Navy never came out of any fight with its proverbial shirt. Unfortunately, it wasn't just bad luck. We were unprepared for war, from the lowest private in the army to the Commander in Chief. Coral Sea was at best a draw and Midway was a win, not because of our abilities, but because of a series of very lucky breaks.
This story takes some license with history and technology. First, the American government takes decisive action against the Japanese, the premise of the book. Secondly, Admiral Yammamoto is replaced just before the Pearl. This is not an improbability because he wasn't trusted by the hard liners in Japan. He opposed starting a war he knew Japan could never win but like Robert E. Lee, when his country decided to fight, he gave it his best. Thirdly, some technological advances are utilized a little earlier in the book than in history. These include the snorkel for the submarine and mid-air refueling of aircraft, both were possible at the time. The atomic bomb was not advanced, it was built on a crash program and it is doubtful it could have been completed earlier. Any of my conclusions can be questioned individually, but my story is plausible.
Jack Miller stood watch as the USS Boston held station in the western Pacific ocean. The Boston was one of sixty odd Harrisburg class submarines built since 1942. From the periscope shears he scanned his half of the choppy ocean while Jim Dimmler scanned the other half. It was unusual to be on the surface. Even with the stabilizers operating the whale-shaped Boston rode badly on the surface of even a smooth sea. He looked nervously over his shoulder. Japan was less than seven hundred miles behind him. The mission required them to be on the surface. At ten minute intervals the captain and the exec would each take a sun sight then, calculate and compare the positions. Although he couldn't see them, eight other U. S. Submarines were on the surface of the western Pacific. They were covering an area just over fifteen hundred miles to the east and about three hundred miles wide. Jack knew only that they were lifeguards and radio relays for some special air mission over Japan. Over the last year the Boston had twice picked up downed fliers in this area, serving as a lifeguard was not foreign to the Boston. The submarines were operating with their radar and radio equipment shut down except the devices installed just before they left Pearl. Two civilians and three extra radio men came on board with the gray boxes. The Boston radio men were sworn to secrecy before they were briefed on how to operate the equipment. Captain Bowders was little information about the mission or the devices until after they were at sea. As he stood his watch, Jack remembered that awful day in 1941.
Carol Nispel looked down the aisle of the small military chapel, at the front stood Mark Fuller in his Army Air Corps uniform. Their eyes met for a moment and he smiled. Before she could return the smile the heard the organist begin the familiar wedding march and she felt her father's hand on her arm to move. Commander Dave Nispel was about to give his daughter's hand to the man standing at the front. He took her arm, looked at her and smiled at her as they stepped off. At the front he placed her arm in Mark Fuller's hand and stepped back to the front seat. His daughter was moving from his care to the care of the man that was standing next to her. Dave Nispel smiled, Mark was a fine young man, for a fly boy, that was. He was stationed nearby flying B-17's. They were considered the coastal defense, he would probably be there for some time. Commander Nispel had been able to fly in from the Pacific to be at his daughter's wedding. He would be returning to Pearl the following day on the Cruiser Boise.
The ceremony took only twenty seven minutes. They left the chapel in a flurry of rice. Mark and Carol took a three day trip up the coast and returned on Wednesday. Carol had just graduated from the Mercy Hospital Nursing program on Thursday, was married on Saturday and now would begin work there as an R. N. the following Monday. They would have married sooner but the program was for single women only. In spite of intense feelings for each other they had not been sexually active. Carol would have been dropped from the program immediately upon had she become pregnant. Mercy was a good school, and a very good posting, the pay was good and the hospital had good facilities. It was a place someone could stay for a career or leave to find a good position elsewhere, riding on its exceptional reputation. Carol threw herself into the work and making a home for herself and Mark in an apartment they rented near the hospital.
Mark Fuller climbed out of the B-17 and walked to the ready room. He had just returned from nearly two weeks of continual flying. They flew to the east coast, did one long over water flight every other day and returned to California without a break. The orders they were handed were a surprise to everyone in the unit, all had expected at least three days off. The news was bad, they were being transferred to Pearl for six months to allow a unit stationed there to be rotated back to the mainland. When he told Carol about the posting she burst into tears, ran to the bedroom and slammed the door. She lay on the bed sobbing, her husband was leaving to go to a land of skinny women in grass skirts. Finally he got up the nerve and went into the bedroom. Finally she quit sobbing enough to talk, "You're going to an island of girls in grass skirts and you'll have a fat wife when you come home."
He looked at her puzzled, "You're not gaining weight, what's this fat wife about?"
"I missed my period, the test isn't back yet but I'm probably pregnant. I was late before you left. This messes up our plans."
He held her, "This doesn't mess up our plans, it just makes them happen sooner."
Two days later he and his crew stripped their bomber to the bone, taking out guns and anything else that could be replaced at Pearl and headed west with the rest of the flight.
Jack Miller was at sea near Leyte aboard the Greyfish when they were notified of the attack which signaled the beginning of hostilities. They were ordered to remain in the area with three other submarines to menace Japanese shipping. Hopefully they could slow the southward move of the Rising Sun. They remained in the area until just before Christmas, harassing troop convoys and sinking a merchant ship. On December 17 the Kingfish was badly damaged and her crew scuttled her just outside the harbor. As the situation worsened everywhere the remaining three subs were ordered to pick up some political and military leaders and take them to Pearl. American surface shipping could no longer operate safely in the area. The subs were the last way out. The Greyfish refueled and provisioned at Manila, then embarked the eighty seven passengers and headed for Pearl. Two other submarines were making the same trip but for security, they were to travel alone. The trip was far from uneventful. They had planned to be at sea for less than two weeks with nearly a hundred and fifty people in a boat built to accommodate less than half that number in Spartan conditions. First they were plagued by Japanese planes that forced them to run submerged for nearly sixteen hours every day, surfacing only at night to charge batteries and clear the air in the boat. During the eight hours on the surface they could cover nearly two hundred miles while the sixteen hours spent under the sea would only give them just under a hundred miles more and leave them with depleted batteries and air that was nearly poisonous. At this rate Pearl was twelve days away.
Five days out of Manila, one of the Greyfish's four diesel engines failed. There were no spare parts to make repairs. Their advance was reduced to two hundred miles each day. Another blow came ten days later. With Pearl three days away, the Greyfish was diverted to San Diego. A submarine spotted a Japanese fleet headed east. Pearl might be attacked and even occupied at any time. The people on board couldn't be risked. One of the submarines that left Manila with the Greyfish had not been heard from, it was assumed lost. The trip to San Diego took eight days on the two remaining diesels, a second one failed just after the diversion. With all of his problems, the captain was puzzled when six days out of San Diego the Greyfish received a priority message asking him to immediately provide a detailed list of the work and supplies needed to make the Greyfish ready for sea. Just sending the long radio message was a significant risk.
Once east of Pearl the Greyfish could now remain on the surface but supplies were running out. They had gotten less than two thirds of the requested food, by now, this was nearly gone. Fresh water was in short supply. When they arrived in San Diego there was less than enough to feed the company for another day. The last hundred miles was covered with two Diesels which kept stalling because the fuel was contaminated, the captain requested a tow but none was available. When they docked, Jack and the one hundred forty nine others were just glad to be home.
Men and parts were waiting when they docked. Even before the passengers were disembarked, workmen came aboard and the refit of the boat began. A peacetime refit would have taken several weeks. Some repairs were not considered urgent and were just not done. The Greyfish was back at sea in three days. She headed to the west at best possible speed along with fourteen other subs.
The President sadly shook his head as he looked across his desk, his eyes meeting those of his visitor's. They reflected the same sadness. "I have no doubts left, the United States has less than twenty four hours to prepare to meet this threat. War is inevitable and imminent."
"I agree, Mr. President," his visitor replied. "The way I read this, they plan to attack us in about twenty one hours, and without warning. It's what we feared but hoped would never happen."
"Where did I go wrong?" the President shook his head. "I pledged to keep the country out of this war, to give us time to rebuild our economy, even now we're just beginning to see the recovery. Now I have to ask the people to support me in a war we don't want and aren't ready to fight. What could we have done differently? How could we have avoided this?"
"There's a lot of things we could've done, but I doubt any of them would've changed this. This piece of paper proves they've been planning and preparing for war for over five years, even as they publicly talked of peace. The recent meetings asking us to make small concession was only a ploy to make them and their attack look righteous when we refused. If we had given in, they'd have asked for more. Actually, I think they'll attack tomorrow no matter what we do or what concession we offer. Their fleet is already at sea and I don't think they'll recall it. I think we should meet them in force, and now. Look how Hitler repaid the British for their concessions at Munich."
The President looked down at his desk and nodded. He buzzed the secretary at the desk outside, "Get the Secretary of War and Navy here, get Marshall and J. Edgar too. See if they all can make it in at eleven. Tell them to come prepared to discuss the readiness of our forces in the Pacific and tell them to not discuss their meeting with anyone except their senior staff. This has to stay under wraps. Tell them to bring along a couple of people they'll need to make decisions on the subject." He hung up the phone, his jaw tightened, he had made a decision. "We must make our action a surprise, turn the tables on them so to speak, but we can't allow our forces to shoot first. Cordell, come back at eleven and bring whatever you need."
Secretary Hull rose and walked to the door. His efforts to avoid conflict had been in vain. He had worked so hard since summer and for nothing. He walked to an office he used when he waited for the President, he would wait there. The President's secretary made the calls, then brought a cup of coffee to the visitor, with milk and two spoons of sugar, the way he always drank it. He looked out into the cold Washington air and held the cup as if its warmth would drive away the fear that had begun to tighten in his gut.
The group was assembled in the White House conference room as requested. Harold Stimson, Knox, Admiral Harold Stark, and General George Marshall were there with their aides. Each had brought several staff members. Two men accompanied J. Edgar.. Only the Secretary of State was alone. The president entered just after eleven and they were seated. He slowly looked around the table, seemingly unsure of how to begin, then lowered his head and said, "I'll have Secretary Hull tell you why we're here."
The Secretary rose slowly. "I'll read you a message we intercepted last night. Because some of you aren't cleared to know I can't tell you how this message came into our possession but I can tell you we are totally certain of its authenticity. None of the information from this message or even its existence can be discussed with anyone outside this group." He read from the document. When finished he looked up at the men at the table. "I'd like to have your opinions." Quiet discussions started among the delegations from each branch of the services. He sat down and leafed through the papers he was holding. Finally he stood up again.
"Navy first, tell me what they're up to."
The Admiral looked at one of his men, "George, you've been watching the Japanese, what do you make of it?"
George looked down at the notes on his pad. "I'd say the Japanese are planning to attack us tomorrow just after 1300 hours Washington time. I'd make that just after dawn at Pearl, say about 0730 hours. I call this an attack on the islands and the fleet there." He looked at the Admiral, "A Sunday morning attack, at dawn and without warning, this could easily be a devastating attack. Our forces would be at a low state of readiness with many men on leave. It'll be exactly what Billy Mitchell predicted." Both the admiral and general winced. Billy Mitchell was thrown out of the military in the 1930's for predicting such an attack, an attack the brass had called impossible.
The Admiral looked up with a smile, "That'd be my assessment if we didn't know their main carrier fleet is in the Sea of Japan. We've been monitoring their radio traffic for weeks. They haven't been keeping the kind of radio silence we'd expect if they were planning a surprise attack. Just yesterday we saw radio traffic to and from one of the carriers..." His voice trailed off. "Just a minute, let me show you the messages." He opened his brief case and pulled out a stack of messages. He flipped through them and pulled out three and handed them to George. "They can hardly attack Pearl when they're in the Sea of Japan."
George looked at the three radio intercepts. One was a message from the Japanese fleet headquarters to the carrier Kaja. The second was from the Kaja to fleet headquarters. The third was from fleet headquarters to some unknown destination, stamped Kaja, with a question mark. The one from fleet headquarters was a request for information which was supplied in the other message. George shook his head. "Look at the time stamps. The answer was sent three hours before the question."
As the admiral grabbed the message the president leaned forward, "How good are those time stamps? Could the operator just have timed them wrong?"
George took the messages, "Generally, I might think there could be a mistake but look at the intercept operator's name on each message. The one operator is day, the other evening shift. They're two of the best, the times are good, at least within a few minutes. My guess is the Japs left a regular radio operator from each ship at port and gave him a shore based transmitter and traffic to handle. Makes it look like the ship is still there. Our guys can identify the operators by their touch on the key. See the note on the corner of the message, 'Kaja 1'? That means the operator identified the sender as someone we know as operator number 1 from the Kaja. They left an operator at home that they were sure we would recognize, it had to be someone we identified with the ship. Now look at the other message."
The admiral looked at the message. It's content was a group of six numbers, repeated ten times. George continued, "They sure didn't want us to know what this says, it isn't in Japanese Naval Code." The Admiral winced, there were George had just divulged that they could read the Japanese Naval code, a closely guarded secret. That would be reason for a reprimand. "It's probably some pre-arranged signal to tell them to either proceed or stop. The indication, 'Kaja?' was put on by the operator. That means it was sent as a part of a group of messages sent to the Kaja but there was no confirmation of receipt. The operator cannot confirm that the message was received or even if it was intended for the Kaja. If
the Kaja is really at sea and they didn't want us to find them, they would send a quick confirm on a different band, it would be pre-arranged. The Kaja would only send three or four characters, not enough for us to hear them, let alone get a fix on them."
The Secretary of State looked up, "What about the Army?" The General looked at his staff. One by one they nodded. "We concur."
Before the question could be asked, J. Edgar spoke up, "That's how we see it, the filthy Japs plan to hit us tomorrow." He pulled out a report, "We had a report from one of our men in Hawaii last week, he observed a Japanese we've suspected of spying being more open. He thought the Jap was taking notes of locations of ships in the harbor. It really fits."
"Why didn't we do anything to stop him?" the President asked.
"Technically he hasn't violated any laws, we've only been watching him because he shows too much interest in the harbor. There isn't a law against that. We've been watching and waiting, some day he'll break the law and we'll be there to get him."
The president continued, "So we have a fleet which we don't know the where about's of, a spy checking on the harbor, messages obviously intended to deceive us on the fleet location and an ultimatum to be delivered at a time to coordinate with a morning attack on Pearl. Anyone else know anything they
haven't told us about?"
One of the Army staff officers pulled out a paper, "We have a guy who has been frequenting bars in the Hickem area, buying drinks for pilots, getting them drunk and asking a lot of questions. His name is Mikami, the pilots call him Johnny the Jap."
J. Edgar looked up, "Johnny the Jap, that's the guy who was checking out the harbor. Do we have any other suspected spies in the area?"
George spoke up, "One other, a diplomat named Yoshikawa, he appears to be the contact for Johnny and does a little work himself. He frequents a bar overlooking the harbor. One of our agents has observed him making notes while looking out the window."
"I guess we all believe it'll happen tomorrow at dawn in Hawaii?" The president looked around the room to see the nods of affirmation. "Now, what can we do about it?" the President asked.
The three principles all tried to talk at once. The president held up his hand and pointed to the Admiral.
"We need to get the ships ready and under way before the attack. They're sitting ducks in that harbor. It's now early Saturday morning, if we wait too long we'll have to recall the men from Saturday night shore leave, it might be impossible to contact them all, we might even have to sortie some ships without a full complement. The fleet's in, the BB's and just about everything but the carriers. They're about 200 miles to the southeast conducting some air crew training. What we need now is to locate the Japanese fleet and send our fleet out to intercept them."
J. Edgar broke in, "Let us take out the spies first. That way they'll not know what we're doing, leave the filthy Nip Navy blind. I can have them both in custody within two hours. We'll pick them up, take them to the Federal Offices and hold them incommunicado until some time late on Sunday. By then if we're wrong we'll let them go and apologize to the Japanese government. If not, well, we'll handle that when we get to it."
The president nodded approval. J. Edgar motioned to one of the men with him. "Bill, go take care of sending the message and come back. Make sure you tell Pearl to take them out quiet, don't make a big fuss, and make sure they don't get a chance to talk to anyone. Tell the agents to knock them out if they have to, they know how. And have them notify Admiral Short when they're clear. I'd like to tell you to shoot the bastards on sight, but you know we can't do that unless they resist. Tell the men there to use whatever force needed to take them. I really wouldn't mind if they did resist, would probably save us a lot of trouble." The man got up and left. Nobody noted the act till much later, Hoover, a civilian had just issued the first hostile order of the war, the first directive involving deadly force.
"Where would their fleet be?" the president asked.
The Admiral looked at his men, one responded, "North north west of Pearl. That's the only way they could have come from Japan to a place within striking distance without being seen. If they were anywhere else someone would have spotted them. That route would also avoid the shipping lanes, to make sighting by a ship less likely. I'd like to see us put up the Catalinas, tell them to be careful to not be seen and look for the Jap fleet. It has to be in that sector, to be in position to attack tomorrow they have to be about three to five hundred miles out."
"Go set it up, but nothing more than the surveillance. Make sure that what they find is kept secret until the FBI gets the spies picked up. The FBI will be notifying Short when they're clear. Make sure the pilots know this is to be kept secret, nobody talks about anything to anyone."
Again someone left the meeting to arrange the search. About two hours later Catalinas were taking off and heading north. By then, Johnny the Jap and Yoshikawa were both in custody. The FBI had scored a real coup in picking up the diplomat at his home. They searched the house and found his message log and codes. He was due to send a message of fleet status at 2200 hours. A FBI radio operator was set to send a garbled message at the appointed time to confuse the Japs. By that time, the ships would be at sea. As a diplomat he couldn't be charged but under the circumstances he would be held for the next forty eight hours pending return to his own country as Persona non grata.
As the meeting progressed the other staff members were pulling out papers and making notes. The President directed them to prepare for the battle that would most certainly be joined the next day. Lunch was brought in and by 1500 hours the plan was formulated. Everyone left to begin its implementation. They would meet again late in the evening to confirm that all was in place.
Orders were cut for the commanding officers of all ships at Pearl. A fleet order issued early in the day canceled all leaves and put all ships on alert, ready to sail. The later order directed them to leave harbor at 1700 hours. Their individual battle orders were delivered just prior to the departure time.
All of the battleships except the Pennsylvania sortied on time. The flagship of the fleet was in dry dock with a destroyer behind it. Before she could leave the dry dock must be cleared of equipment and filled with water. This couldn't be completed before 1700 so the Pennsylvania would sortie at least an hour later than the other ships. The various portions of the fleet would move north and be in a position north and east of Pearl at daybreak. The plan was a simple one. If the Japanese fleet presented itself as expected, the US carrier fleet would be just under 200 miles from it, and the battleships would be between the two carrier forces. At 27 knots the battleships could close the gap before midday and attack. The orders were clear, the fleet couldn't fire or close within 100 miles of the Japanese fleet unless attacked or until the Japanese attacked the islands. It was imperative that the Japanese not learn of the presence of the fleet until they were committed to an attack on Pearl so that the movement couldn't be considered a provocation.
The Japanese fleet class submarine I-6 was one of twelve positioned outside Pearl to support the raid. She and four others were each carrying a midget sub which was to enter the harbor and inflict damage on ships which attempted to escape. Serving on these midgets were essentially a one way trip, their crews would either be killed or captured, they had no way to return to the mother sub. She could not afford to wait for them, this would expose her to unacceptable risks. The larger subs were to maintain a watch from offshore and follow any large ship movements -- but to remain out of sight until 8:00 AM Pearl time the next day. After the air attack began, they could pick off any ships that were able to get under way and leave the harbor. Most of the submarine crew members considered their mission to the very mouth of the American Fleet headquarters suicidal. Few expected to return to Japan. Most had posted final letters to their families before leaving the homeland.
Just after 1730 the watch on the I-6 picked up the sounds of heavy ships moving out of the harbor. The captain took his boat to periscope depth and observed battleships, cruisers and destroyers moving out to sea. He counted seven battleships, three cruisers and at least eight destroyers. He waited until 1800 and sent off a short signal to Fleet Headquarters informing them of the movement. This done, he dived and launched the midget sub he carried. The midget would have to leave for the beach early and bide its time till the following morning, the I-6 could wait no longer. It must take station and follow the fleet. It must be in position to attack in the morning.
All of the submarines except the two stationed to the south west heard the fleet movement and were following. Like the I-6, the others carrying the midgets cast them off early and followed the fleet. The two remaining submarines would continue to monitor their assigned areas.
The Pennsylvania finally cleared dry dock and with three destroyers left the harbor as planned. By now they were some forty miles behind the main body of the fleet but would join it during the night. The I-6 had just begun to shadow the battleship fleet, running at high speed on the surface, when a large ship was sighted dead astern on the same course and closing very fast. If they did not get out of its way they would be overrun. The sub turned to port, dived and waited. The ship passed the submerged I-6 with its three escorts. When the I-6 came to periscope depth it identified the ship as the Pennsylvania, the flagship of the Pacific battleship fleet, a real prize. He considered attacking her but the orders were explicit, there was to be no attack till after 8:00 on Sunday morning. He noted the ship, she was steaming at about twenty seven knots. Clearly, she was in a hurry. After she passed a second message was sent to Fleet Headquarters with this information. The I-6 followed about sixteen knots even though the much faster Pennsylvania quickly pulled away. The captain knew approximately where she was headed and that soon she would slow and the I-6 could slip into a position for the attack her captain knew would come. He would patiently prepare and wait for the signal. He was certain he knew her destination and her intent. His torpedo tubes were loaded and ready.
On board the I-22 and the I-27 the signal officers decoded messages from the fleet headquarters. Eac submarine had a prearranged time to surface and listen for traffic, and send if the need arose. The other ten submarines which had been guarding the entrance to Pearl had already moved off to follow a large fleet of surface ships. The I-22 would now move east near to the mouth of the harbor, the I-27 was to move just south of the I-22 and cover it if an action was initiated. The two captains were informed that five midget submarines had already been launched and should be entering the harbor. Both captains informed their crews and they moved to the assigned areas. They would remain vigilant but would not initiate any action until the appointed time. Before leaving on this mission most of the officers and men of the I-22 had cut a lock of hair and left it for their relatives. Many of them did not expect to return.
Captain Dale Maler and his crew had been in the air for over five hours in a Catalina and had seen nothing but empty ocean. They were now over five hundred miles from base, just to the east of the center of the search pattern and had seen nothing but water for most of the flight. The sun was on the western horizon, just off to his left as he looked for the three hundredth time at the fuel gage and the clock. In about a half hour he must turn toward base, at that time he would have enough fuel to return and still have a comfortable safety margin. The longer he looked, the more sure he was that the Japanese fleet was not in his area. Possibly one of the other planes would find the Jap fleet. Or maybe this was another false alarm, maybe there was no Japanese fleet. There had been at least ten false alarms in the last month, all had resulted in the Catalinas burning a lot of fuel, crews getting tired and nothing being spotted. For something to do to bide the time he mentally calculated how much fuel he had burned looking for Jap fleets that were not there. He smiled, on the good side the government was paying for him to get flight time that would be good when he looked for a job after leaving the Military. His train of thought was broken by his co-pilot George White, who was looking toward the east through the binoculars whistled, "Look at that."
Dale strained but couldn't see anything so he picked up his binoculars. George was right though, something was out there. He turned the focus wheel slightly. Off on the eastern horizon was a fleet. They turned toward it to get a better look. They had their backs to the sun, and thus had the advantage of being able to see but couldn't easily be seen. After a few minutes of flight they were able to identify several of the ships as Japanese carriers and were able to get a rough heading. They dropped low over the water and turned southwest to avoid detection. About fifteen minutes later they made a report. Their orders had been to avoid making any radio transmissions while close to the fleet to make detection more difficult.
Within the hour the location of the Japanese fleet was signaled to the American fleet at sea. All other PBY's were notified to avoid the area so that the surprise would be maintained. The PBY's primary purpose now was to be sure that Mahler had actually found the fleet by a negative search of the remainder of the area. The base would be placed on alert at 0500 the next morning. Another PBY would skirt the area about two hours later to verify the location and course of the Japanese Fleet.
The Lexington and Enterprise headed north at flank speed in light seas. The escorts were straining to keep up with the fast carriers. With the exception of a few men making last minute repairs to aircraft, the carrier's maintenance and flight crews were sleeping. Preparation was over, it was now time for the battle. The current battle plan called for an early morning launch. The evening had been spent planning and getting all planes ready. The carriers would launch a Combat Air Patrol just before dawn to provide air cover for the fleet. The remaining planes would be readied to make a maximum attack on the Japanese fleet. The Saratoga had been notified of the plan. She was steaming west and would meet them at about 0400.
Lieutenant Ed Boise, a Wildcat fighter pilot had been on the Enterprise for only three weeks. Now he faced battle the next day and he was sure he was not ready. He had been in his bunk for over an hour, trying to get some rest but his mind refused to shut down. He would doze off, but he kept seeing the silhouettes of Japanese fighters but in his dream he couldn't remember their names. He wished he had spent more time studying them. The silhouettes grew, each became a fighter, headed toward him with its guns blazing. Each time as the plane approached his guns jammed and he felt the Japanese bullets hit his plane. His engine quit, the plane caught fire, and he parachuted into the cold water. Each time he hit the water he woke up.
Each time he lay awake for a while wondering if this was what air combat was like for all pilots or was he the only one who was scared. He saw the squadron leader apparently asleep in is bunk. Surely he was not afraid.
On board the Lexington, Enterprise and Saratoga, flight crews were already in briefing rooms before dawn. Plane crews were spotting armed and gassed planes on the deck and were even then were checking and rechecking every detail; engines, controls, radios, guns, bombs, torpedoes. It would have provided no comfort to anyone in the fleet to know that the same procedure was under way on the Japanese carriers.
Halsey looked out at the fleet. He knew the consequences of the action they were about to take. Over the next twelve hours he would join with the Japanese in a decisive Naval battle that would be fought at every level from 22,000 feet above the surface of the Pacific to one hundred feet below its surface. The cream of the American Navy would meet the best of the Japanese Navy in a decisive battle. To the winner would go the control of much of the Pacific Ocean. Halsey looked at the fleet and mused, "The Japs bit off too much this time. They've stuck their head into the meat grinder and I'm turning the handle."
Off the Lexington's port bow the Boise steamed with Admiral Spraunce, the commander of the destroyer and cruiser screen for the carriers. Spraunce was a "battleship admiral", one who had been brought up in the navy when the battle wagon was queen. He looked out over the Pacific, the Japanese were out there, the report said they had six carriers. Although Spraunce was in the "battleship navy" he had seen the power of aircraft more than many of the carrier admirals. He feared the planes. He had seen the pictures of Stukas diving on land targets during the Spanish Civil war, he had seen the intense anti-aircraft fire and seen the planes survive. If these planes could dive through that fire and survive, they could successfully attack ships. If they could make successful attacks and drop bombs weighing 500 pounds or more, not one ship in the American Navy was safe. If they can be hit, they can be sunk and Spraunce KNEW they could be hit. His job was to see that the planes could not get close enough to make such attacks. But he knew that his crews could not guarantee that, if the Japanese attacked, there would be ships hit. His men would then become lifeguards. They would be diverted from their role to protect the carriers. While he was standing there a message was brought to him, it read, "Japanese radio traffic detected approx. 20 miles south and to the east since 1700 Dec. 6. Most likely indicates submarine presence in the area." As bad as the aircraft presence was, to also have submarines in the area would only increase the risk. Spraunce called the air and sonar officers to the bridge, when they arrived he was outside, they reported to him. He spent the next hour walking the deck with them, discussing how they would meet the dual threat.
The eight American battleships and their escorts were steaming about eighty miles ahead of the carriers, placing them in position to make surface contact with the Japanese fleet by midday. They were running parallel to the Japanese fleet course, but as soon as the Japanese attacked they would turn west to intercept, leave some of the force to engage the Japanese battleships and allow the remainder of the fleet to attack the carrier force. The Japanese had only two battleships in the fleet, these would be brushed aside. The battleship commander hoped for an early air attack, he could then turn and fight a day time battle. He knew the Japanese battleships had better night sighting equipment, only one of his ships had a functioning radar. Fighting during the day was to his advantage. Earlier in the day the sun woud be at his back making the sighting more difficult for the Japanese.
On the California the gunners were checking the main turrets. As they worked they longed to see the Japanese carriers, they knew well what the massive 3000 pound shells of the 16 inch rifles would do to thin skinned carriers. The older men also knew it was likely two Japanese Battleships carrying 18.1 inch rifles would be ahead of the carriers, they would have to take them out to get to the carriers. But there were eight American ships to two or three Japanese. Surely this action would be one-sided. Dick Ness, the forward gunnery officer was a little more reserved than the younger men. He knew the Japanese 18.1's had a six mile range advantage over the American 16's, if the Japanese spotted them before they closed that gap they would come under fire from the Japanese guns for as much as fifteen minutes before they could return fire. With the clear weather this was not only possible, it was likely. That fifteen minute gap in range could be critical. The Japanese gunners could deliver over two hundred projectiles in that time, even at five percent hits that was ten hits. Ten explosions, ten holes in the American ships. Men would die at the point of each hit. The ship would be damaged, possibly impacting its ability to return fire. That fifteen minutes might be critical to the outcome of the battle. On the good side, there would be six fast moving targets for the two large Japanese battleships, they would have to divide their fire. Even after they got into range, the American Battleships would be have to steam directly toward the Japanese to first reduce and then maintain the range, giving the Japanese the advantage of "crossing the T", a naval maneuver that would yield to the Japanese ships a significant advantage. While the Japanese could bring their full broadsides to bear, the Americans could only use the forward turrets, giving the Japanese a three to one advantage in the rate of fire. That in itself would even the odds on the number of ships, even if the Americans covered the deadly area of impotence unscathed. Beyond that, by crossing the "T", the Japanese would have a fire control advantage that would make hits by each of those shells more likely. Clearly the Americans would face a serious challenge. Few of the men knew the strategy enough to know that. "With some luck we'll all make it," Gene thought, but in his heart he knew that without some significant luck some of the men in the battle fleet would not survive that fifteen minute run and even more would not survive the battle that followed. He had seen pictures of the British ships that survived the naval battles in the Great War. They were the survivors, the winners of the battle and they were not a pretty site.
A Japanese float plane pilot spotted the American battleships when they were just over one hundred miles from the Japanese fleet. Ozawa moved his heavy surface escorts about forty miles to the east of the fleet, to place them between his carriers and the American Battleships. He did not want to risk having his thin-skinned carriers come under the devastating fire of their sixteen inch guns. Putting them there would allow him to utilize them and their main armament including rifles up to 18.1 inches against the American surface fleet if they came in range. Within a few minutes of the sighting of the battleships, the American carriers were spotted by another scout. The submarine reports had been accurate but incomplete, they had reported the movement of the Battleships but not the carriers. The admiral set his battle plan and prepared for fleet action. The attack on Pearl could wait till this floating menace was neutralized. His primary mission was the destruction of the American Fleet and particularly the carriers. The fleet was here, not at Pearl, the fleet was his primary target. Pearl became a secondary target. The dive bombers, high level bombers and half of his fighters would engage the American carriers, unescorted torpedo planes would take on the battleships and the remaining fighters would provide combat air patrol over the home fleet. The slower torpedo planes would take off last, to put them over the battleships a few minutes later than the initial wave which was targeted for the carriers. Surprise was more important in the carrier attack than the with the surface ships. If they could get the American Carriers before they had a chance to launch their planes would be able to attack an undefended fleet. The admiral had taken the advice of his fleet air officer who felt that the torpedo planes would be more effective against the armored battleships than the other aircraft. At 0600 hours the planes began departing. They would hit the American carriers at just before 0800. Pearl would have to wait.
Admiral Ozawa was already improvising the plan. He had not been the one chosen to plan or lead the Pearl Harbor attack. That honor had originally been bestowed on Admiral Yammomoto but shortly after he completed the planning he had fell from favor because he opposed the attack on the United States. He was targeted for assassination by the militarists and had to flee the country. Even now he was hiding in China from forces who considered him defeatist. This left the more aggressive Ozawa to lead the attack. The treatment of the more moderate Yammomoto further served to increase Ozawa's resolve. A decisive blow must be struck to the Americans or his life too could be in jeopardy. He must win. He would see the American Fleet destroyed with no mercy to anyone, American or Japanese. Without a decisive win, he would not be able to return home.
The American fleet put up its combat air patrol of twenty one planes, seven from each carrier. These would be replaced as their fuel ran low. The other planes were armed and ready for launch, with the fighters spotted first for quick takeoff, in case of an air attack they would take off to reinforce the CAP and the bombers would go without fighter cover. With everything ready the fleet waited. Their orders were explicit. They could not fire until fired upon and they could not scout beyond one hundred miles from the fleet. They must not provide an excuse for the Japanese attack they had been advised would come.
Lieutenant Boise was tail end Charlie in his unit, the last Combat Air Patrol fighter to roll down the deck of the Enterprise. As he pulled up he looked out to his left he saw a fighter lift off another carrier, the Saratoga was launching her CAP. He formed up on his wingman who then joined with the other fighters. He had slept only about two hours, he had just taken off and already he was yawning. It would be a long day.
At 0745 the two hundred seventy Japanese planes were spotted inbound by the combat air patrol. The American carriers commenced launching their remaining planes, fighters first. Meanwhile Japanese fighters spotted the American CAP. The Japanese leader dispatched half of his sixty fighters to engage them at a distance from the bombers. The American fighters would be outnumbered three to two in their first fight. The remaining Japanese fighters would stay with the bombers and would only engage fighters that attacked the formation. The Japanese fighters made a head on pass on the American CAP knocking two American fighters out of the battle with serious damage. Both were able to return safely to the carriers. The Americans held fire during this pass but the action by the Japanese freed the Americans to return fire. Although Americans were outnumbered in the fight they scored twenty five kills against the inbound bogies at a cost of only ten of their own number. It would be one of the few actions of the day which could even remotely be called an American victory. The remaining eleven American fighters attacked the Japanese bombers as some of the other fighters which had been launched began engaging the enemy. Thirty more Japanese planes went down, all but five of them fighters, seemingly a victory, but the American CAP had been reduced to twenty three fighters, with all of them scattered and out of position to put up a coordinated fight. The Japanese flight had started with sixty fighters and one hundred eighty bombers. There were now twenty seven Japanese fighters in the air and one hundred seventy five bombers were still proceeding toward the carrier fleet. The Japanese fighter pilots had taken serious losses but it was not a vain sacrifice. They had prevented a slaughter of the bombers. The leaders of the bombing squadrons began parceling out the ships as they approached. The carriers were given highest priority but the other ships were also targeted. At 0759 the first bomb was released. It was targeted for the cruiser Astoria which was on the western edge of the fleet. The pilot's aim was off, the mission for him was a failure, his bomb missed astern and did no damage.
The American Air fleet had been launched and without the fighter cover it headed west toward the Japanese fleet. The fighters couldn't be spared to go with them, they were held to protect the fleet.
By now the anti-aircraft batteries on all of the ships in the carrier fleet were firing at the inbound Japanese bombers. The air attack took just under fifteen minutes. By the time it was completed, the Sara and the Lex were both burning as were five of the cruisers. One of the destroyers had literally blown up and sunk in less than a minute. Four other destroyers were damaged, two of them were in danger of sinking. Just after the first fighter attack the Enterprise turned away from the main fleet to recover damaged CAP fighters and was attacked by only one Japanese plane. It's bomb missed and it was shot down by a fighter as it tried to retire.
As the battle over the American Carriers was being fought the Japanese torpedo planes were approaching the battleships. Because the distance to the battleships was so short, these planes had plenty of fuel and hence could make a well planned attack. They skirted well to the north of the fleet, out of sight and anti-aircraft range and approached from the east, out of the sun. Forty eight of the eighty eight torpedo planes were assigned to the battleships, six to each. Each lumbering torpedo plane carried one torpedo weighing over 2000 pounds, each capable of ripping a hole several feet in diameter in the hull of even the best armored ship. The remaining forty planes were targeted, three for each cruiser and one for each destroyer. Several destroyers weren't targeted, they would escape damage unless they were unlucky enough to be hit by a stray torpedo.
The California was on the eastern side of the fleet and was thus first to come under attack. By now, word of the air battle had been passed to the surface ships. The fleet was free to open fire on any Japanese forces. As the Japanese planes began their deadly torpedo runs, the large guns of the battleships started to fire long range AA. As the came closer, first the eight inch guns of the cruisers and then the five inch guns of the destroyers also opened fire along with the 40 MM Borfors. The anti-aircraft fire put up by the fleet was intense and all of the six torpedo planes targeted for the California were destroyed before they could launch their torpedoes. One was destroyed when it flew into a water spout caused by the splash of one of the 3000 pound - 16 inch shells from the California's main armament. The destruction of these six planes was a significant victory for the Americans because the other torpedo planes would have to pass the California to get to their targets. In addition to her main armament, the California had ten fast firing twin 40 MM Borfors mounts, the most effective medium range ship mounted anti-aircraft weapon and her gunners were among the best in the fleet. Dick Ness and his crew on the aft starboard mount were among the best, they took the AA trophy the last two years. With an undamaged California, the anti-aircraft fire the eastern side of the fleet was able to amass was awesome and she would be likely to keep up heavy fire because she wasn't targeted by any additional aircraft. Shooting down the torpedo planes was a boon for the American Fleet.
Dick Ness was directing the California fire, there were other Japanese planes coming in, they seemed to be passing the California and proceeding to attack the other ships. He couldn't understand why they were not being attacked but he continued firing, a Jap plane was a Jap plane, no matter which ship it was attacking. He did muse that they were easier to hit when they were flying right at you, As he saw a Japanese plane fly past him toward the rest of the fleet, he hoped his brother Gene, a 40 MM Borfors gunner on the Pennsylvania would be OK. With that thought gone, he continued to lay the guns.
The two main turret gunners who had previously been anxious to get to the Japanese were already black with powder and soaked with sweat. They had forgotten the thrill of getting a chance to hit the Japanese carriers, now they were fighting airplanes for their own survival. Ted Marks helped Dean Stenger roll another bag of powder into the tray and ram it into the breach of the center sixteen inch rifle. The process had become mechanical. Ram the shell, ram the powder, close the breach, elevate the gun and fire. Repeat until they tell you to stop. War was not as much fun as they had once thought, it was hard work.
The battle above the American surface fleet would probably have gone worse for the Japanese but the next plane in the formation was targeted for the light cruiser Boise, in formation just to the south of the California. The torpedo released properly and ran true. The explosion caused little damage to the cruiser but it signaled the start of the battle to another player who had up till now been restrained from becoming a participant.
The I-9 was in position just east of the California and had set up a firing solution for the ship. The orders were clear, the submarines weren't to take any offensive action until they were sure the Japanese aircraft had engaged the enemy. Although the attack H hour had passed, the submariners had no way to know for sure that the air battle had already been joined. As he watched the captain of the I-9 saw a torpedo plane with Imperial markings drop a torpedo and turn away. When the torpedo exploded just aft of the bow of the Boise, the I-9 was free to act and fired its four forward torpedoes at the California within the next minute. The California's attention had been on the attacking aircraft, the submarines hadn't been spotted. The Americans were new at sea battle, they had not considered the threat of Japanese submarines coordinated with an aircraft attack. This was not at all surprising. Neither the current American or Japanese doctrine of battle had a provision for submarines to operate in concert with carrier aircraft, the coordinated Japanese submarine attack was a happy accident for the Japanese and a big surprise for the Americans. The I-9's torpedoes weren't spotted until they were close inboard. A sharp turn to starboard was ordered. The turn had just started when the torpedoes hit, bracketing the ship from bow to stern. She took on a fifteen degree list and went dead in the water. Internal fires threatened her magazines. They were flooded. She was no longer an effective weapon. Within fifteen minutes it was evident to the damage control officer that without a miracle they would loose the ship.
Ted and Dean felt the ship begin to turn. They had just rammed a powder bag into the breach of the left sixteen and closed it when the first torpedo hit. The ship shuddered and a shock rang through it. The men in the turret were thrown to the floor. Before the ship recovered from the first blow, there were three more. When the last shock subsided, the men in the turret began to get up. Ted and Dean were found with their legs pinned under the rammer head. Their legs were obviously badly crushed, they were splinted, morphine was administered and the men were taken from the turret. By the time they were in sick bay the fires below deck had become a serious threat to the survival of the ship. They were moved to evacuation stations. Within an hour they were in a lifeboat.
While the men were being taken from the turret the Bob Jordan was directing activities to get the guns back in action. His arm was in a sling, it was broken, but he must get the guns back into action. They succeeded in getting the rammer back in place and fired the rounds in the guns. They began reloading when they heard the flooding alarm. They fired the two rounds on the lift and secured the turret. The 16 inch guns were useless, they had nothing to fire.
The I-9 fired its two stern torpedoes at the West Virginia and dove to reload. The exec of the West Virginia had just seen four torpedo hits on the California and knew they could not be from aircraft, no planes were in position to deliver them. He alerted the watch to the possibility of submarine. The two I-9 torpedoes were spotted when they were at least 5000 yards away. The West Virginia easily dodged then and continued to provide anti-aircraft fire until she was hit by three of the six aircraft torpedoes assigned to her. The torpedoes caused enough damage that the ammunition lifts were put out of action. Soon the West Virginia's guns were impotent.
The destroyer nearest the I-9 turned to attack the submarine but was hit by a aircraft launched torpedo intended for the Arizona. In spite of this good fortune, the Arizona was badly damaged in minutes, a victim of three of the other five air-launched torpedoes. The Pennsylvania, which was on the western side of the formation was the only battleship that remained unhurt as the Japanese planes withdrew. Five of the aircraft targeted to her were shot down by other ships, the remaining aircraft released its torpedo, it hit but had failed to arm. All three cruisers in the screen had been hit and two of the fifteen destroyers were gone, four others were damaged. Two destroyers were assigned to pick up survivors from the Nevada. As they slowed, both were hit by torpedoes. The I-15 had slipped in past the I-9 and fired. The remaining destroyers went to full speed and started hunting submarines, ignoring the men in the water. Within minutes, four contacts were developed and depth charge attacks begun. All four submarines were sunk. The I-9 was at this time still far away from the fleet reloading its tubes. The uncommitted I-37 and I-39 were too far away to participate but were heading toward the fight, guided by the noise of battle. The other three Japanese submarines had lost the battleships in the night and two of them were even now stalking the Enterprise.
As the attacking aircraft moved away from the carriers the Enterprise took down the early CAP, refueled and rearmed it. These planes were sent up to follow the Japanese planes on their way home. The other fighters remained on CAP and were brought down and rearmed in pairs.
On the carriers the radios monitoring the air channel came alive with excited chatter from planes that were at the edge of the range of their radios. Some of the transmissions made it, others did not, some of those which did were garbled, some of the messages were just plain wrong. All of these contributed to the confusion on the carriers. Based on the fragments of messages that got through, it was obvious the American aircraft had found the Japanese fleet and were attacking. In the next ten minutes, one hundred thirty three American bombers and torpedo planes were set upon by nearly forty five fighters and thirty five of them fell from the sky. The remainder pressed in and ten more fell to anti-aircraft fire. They were able to attack only two of the six Japanese carriers. One carrier was on fire as they withdrew. As they turned toward the fleet, the bombers and torpedo planes from the Sara and the Lex were advised to go to Pearl. By now it was apparent there was little chance of saving either ship.
By 1100 hours on December 7, 1941, the US Navy had lost two carriers, six battleships, seven cruisers and nine destroyers. Its aircraft losses were high, twenty two of forty five fighters had been shot down. Forty five bombers were lost with their crews. Five other planes ditched for lack of fuel or battle damage and three more returned so badly damaged they would not fly again. The only good news in this was that eighteen of the fighter pilots were rescued and only one was hurt seriously. All were transferred to the Enterprise. Spare planes were available and some of the pilots were taking their place to reinforce the CAP.
Lt. Ed Boise, a fighter pilot, was the first man shot down that morning by a Japanese fighter making a head on pass. The water was cold. He was picked up by a destroyer and transferred to the Enterprise. Now he was aloft again and had been tracking an elusive plane for about twenty minutes. It kept dodging in and out of the clouds. He was sure it was a Japanese float plane, the ones carried on the cruisers for spotting. It was apparently checking out the fleet. He looked below, all that was left of the carrier fleet was one carrier and five destroyers. The bombers and torpedo planes returned about an hour ago, or more correctly, about a half of them had returned and were even now being spotted for launch. The remainder would not return. Unknown to Lt. Boise, Halsey had made a decision to head south as soon as the attack was launched. He saw the carrier turn into the wind and watched the planes being launched. It suddenly hit him, if we were launching a second wave, the Japanese would be doing the same. The float plane appeared again and then ducked into a cloud. The pilot had seen the launch and radioed the information. He also correctly estimated the size of the American CAP. One hour and a half later Ozawa launched all planes. His fighters were launched last. They would remain with the fleet and provide air cover. The remaining planes would attack the Battleships where he had correctly estimated there would be no fighter opposition. He would not attack the remaining American carrier at this time. He could not allow the battleships to remain afloat and be a menace to his fleet after nightfall. He also correctly believed that the one remaining carrier would not be a significant threat.
The battleship Pennsylvania had turned toward the Japanese fleet. She dodged two additional torpedo attacks while the remaining five destroyers made runs on the three submarines. They sunk the I-37 just after noon. Unknown to them they damaged the I-39 and it turned toward home. The I-9 attempted another attack on the Pennsylvania, the destroyers attacked and the I-9 sustained serious damage. Her forward torpedo tubes were damaged so badly they could not open the outer doors to fire them and the torpedo targeting equipment was jammed. She had a dozen leaks that threatened to overcome the pumps which were now barely able to keep the water in the bilge from rising. With her offensive weapons out of order, the I-9 was no longer an effective unit. Her captain held her near the bottom, keeping quiet for nearly an hour. When he was sure the destroyers had broken off the attack he began to retire from the battle area. The I-9 and her crew had sunk one battleship and one destroyer, not bad for their first day in action. She had been subjected to over fifty depth charges from the American destroyers and although badly damaged, unless she was detected by the enemy, she would return home with her crew to be repaired and both would fight again. Her crew's morale was high and the men wanted to go back after the Pennsylvania, manually aiming the stern tubes but her captain wisely refused. They would fight again, but with an intact ship. Others would have to finish this fight.
Just as the I-9 was pulling from the area its sonar operator picked up the sounds of exploding torpedoes. The captain brought the sub to periscope depth to take a look. In the distance the Pennsylvania and her screen were obviously under air attack. He watched as bombs were dropped and torpedoes were launched. Anti-aircraft fire from the Pennsylvania and the screen lashed out at the planes. Through the smoke he saw the Pennsylvania was on fire, then it vanished in a great fireball. When the fireball was gone, the ship did not exist. The three escorts were listing and on fire. Several Japanese planes had been damaged by the explosion. The captain of the I-9 knew his duty. In full sight of the escorts about seven miles away he surfaced and ran up the rising sun. Moments later several planes ditched near the sub and the crews were picked up. When the planes were gone, the I-9 slipped beneath the waves with seven airmen aboard. After sunset their names were radioed to naval headquarters so their families would know they were safe. By the time the I-9 arrived in Tokyo, there was a hero's welcome for the I-9 and the men she carried. Not only were they credited with one battleship and one destroyer, they also carried the two dive bomber crews who had made the first hits on the Saratoga and the crew of the torpedo plane that had hit the USS Pennsylvania.
Gene Ness was in the water, it took several minutes for him to realize where he was and why. He saw the USS Pennsylvania moving away from him, then he heard someone call, "Help." He saw two other life jackets and swam toward them, at least he was not alone.
Gene had been on one of the port quarter 40 MM Borfors when the first torpedo hit. He and two other men were clearing spent brass near the rail. Now all three were in the water and the USS Pennsylvania was steaming away, probably unaware of their plight. As they lashed their life jackets together they saw the Pennsylvania explode and disappear. There were other ships in the area, maybe one of them would find them.
The Pacific surface fleet now consisted of three damaged American destroyers and hundreds of life rafts and life boats carrying survivors of the battleship fleet. The destroyers were able to make repairs but it was impossible for them to pick up even a fraction of the survivors. The battleship fleet had sailed with just over 28,000 men the day before. Now six hundred of these crammed three damaged destroyers and the remainder of the survivors were on rafts or floating in the water. The best guess would place the dead at something over 6500 since both the USS Pennsylvania and the West Virginia exploded and went down with all hands. Fortunately for the survivors of the other ships there had been time to launch many of the cutters, rafts and lifeboats and these were manned. They were even now being lashed together and the powered boats would begin pulling them toward Pearl as soon as the men in the water were picked up. The men in the water were certain help would come from the carrier fleet to the east. The sea battle had been fought over an area about 100 miles square and the men and boats were scattered over ten thousand square miles. Rescue would be difficult.
Gene and the other two men from the USS Pennsylvania, Harry Booth and Less Tuckey had been floating in the water for over an hour now. Less spotted a lifeboat and they began to wave and swim toward it. When they got to the boat it was full. They lashed themselves to it along with about fifty other men who had already found this questionable place of refuge. They found it was from the Arizona. At least now they had some limited amount of supplies and a lifeboat would be easier to for rescuers to find than three men floating in life jackets. They considered themselves lucky, they were not injured, unlike some of the others in the lifeboat. Just after the three of them arrived at the lifeboat a badly injured person died. The body was placed in the water and another injured person who had been in the water was given the space in the boat.
Twice in the last hour the Enterprise had been under attack by a Japanese submarine. Lt. Boise was scheduled to refuel but was waved off as he was turning on his final approach. The carrier made several sharp turns and avoided the torpedoes while he circled. A few minutes later the screening destroyers located the submarine and began depth charging it. Lt. Boise was brought down. His plane was serviced on the deck, fuel and fluids were pumped in, ammunition trays were filled and by 1415 he was airborne again. It reminded him of an Indy Pit stop.
Lt. Bill Markle was a dive bomber pilot from the Sara who ditched his badly damaged Dauntless near the Big E about half an hour before. With the number of planes to land, he ran out of fuel. He was picked up by the Hamme and transferred to the carrier. Markle had taken a flack hit early in the run on the Japanese carriers and had turned for the carrier, before the order to divert to Pearl was given. On the Big E, he was ordered to take off in a fighter and fly it to Pearl. His training on the new type of aircraft consisted of ten minutes with another pilot showing him the instruments. Fortunately it was not too much unlike the Dauntless. The "fighter training" was almost complete when the alert came, the fighters were being scrambled for CAP. He climbed into his new plane and took off. Nobody asked any questions, nobody asked if he was qualified. He did not want to get caught on the deck, the air seemed safer, he could always head for Pearl. After takeoff he joined up on Lt. Boise. The former tail end Charlie of the carrier fighter squadron now had a wingman who had never flown a fighter before in his life.
As Lt. Boise pulled up over the force he saw that every ship afloat was crammed with men from those which had been sunk. There were many life boats in the water. All of the remaining CAP was being pulled down and refueled quickly. He speculated that another attack was expected. In fact, Halsey had decided to keep the CAP up with enough gas to fly to Pearl. Ed didn't know it but other planes were beginning to leave the Enterprise. These were planes which had been on board as spares and the planes from the other two carriers that had landed on the Enterprise. The spares were being flown off to Pearl by pilots who had been shot down and picked up by the fleet or by several pilots who had been assigned to the Big E. several days ago for training. The Big E couldn't support these pilots and planes so they were being sent to Pearl. Some of these pilots were making takeoffs in planes they had never flown before. One fighter pilot from the Sara, Lt. George Harris took off in a dive bomber with a gunner from a USS Lexington torpedo plane that had crashed alongside the Davis. The pilot of the torpedo plane had a broken arm, he was kept on the destroyer, the uninjured gunner was transferred to the carrier. Neither man had even been in a TBD, both got the best training available, a less than five minute briefing. The two men met on the deck of the Big E three minutes before takeoff. All of these planes made it to Pearl, more important than the planes were the pilots who flew them. These were an irreplaceable resource. They were not expendable.
The elusive float plane appeared again as it came out of the cloud to get a look at the force below. Lt. Boise was able to get a good look at it before it entered a cloud. He followed it. When he emerged from the cloud the float plane was right where he had hoped, twelve o'clock and level. He pressed the button and saw the plane explode in front of him after about two hundred and thirty rounds. As he turned back toward the Enterprise he saw four waterspouts erupt along its port side. Within seconds two destroyers turned to port to prosecute an attack on the submarine. As they did, four more torpedoes came in from the starboard and three more from the port. Obviously, there were at least three submarines operating in the area. One of the destroyers to starboard, the Hamme, turned into the torpedo tracks and was hit by two of the torpedoes. She broke up and went down in less than ten minutes. Her sacrifice was in vain, the other four torpedoes all hit and the Enterprise started to go down by the head. Four destroyers were the only effective units that remained of the carrier force. Three of them began to press attacks on the submarines as the other pulled next to the Enterprise to take off the Flag. The planes from the Enterprise were instructed to fly cover as long as fuel permitted and then make for Pearl. Lt. Boise checked his fuel. If he left now, he could just make it, maybe. He leaned out his fuel mixture, instructed Harris to do the same and headed south before making his report. Before he reached Pearl, the Enterprise slipped under the waves. He landed with less then two gallons of fuel, Harris ran out of fuel on final and made a successful dead stick landing. There was still some lucky men in the American Navy.
As the Hamme and Enterprise slipped beneath the waves there were many more men in the water in life jackets and rafts. The count of men on the carrier fleet was over nine thousand and relative to the loss of ships, few had been killed, possibly as few as five hundred. The core of the American Navy, about twenty two thousand from the battleship fleet and an additional eighty seven hundred from the carriers, was floating in the water north of Pearl and there was no American fleet to stop the Japanese from taking them prisoner or killing them in the water. Although the water was not as cold as the North Atlantic, unless something was done soon, even if the Japanese ignored them, they would die of exposure.
Admiral Short stared at his desk. He had tallied the reports of ships sunk and the estimates of the number of survivors. He had no fleet available to effect a rescue of over thirty thousand men. He did have fifty seven Catalinas which could land on the water, if the weather held. Each could take on at most fifteen passengers and ferry them back. At best each could make two trips before dark. This could save nearly two thousand of the men, less than one out of ten. The Catalinas could also take rafts, food, medical supplies and water on the outbound leg to give the survivors more time. For now he wanted to ignore the possibility of the Japanese attacking or capturing the men in the water. There was nothing he could do to prevent this so it was fruitless to even consider it.
The Catalinas were stripped of all but essential equipment and stocked with whatever was quickly available and put in the air. Fifty of them would fly to the battleship scene, the remainder to the carrier area. They wanted to pull as many men out of the battleship area as possible before the Japanese could get there. By 1700 the Catalinas were on the water loading and by 2000 they were back for the second load. Twelve hundred and fifty men, less than one in ten had been picked up but the supplies that had been brought in would increase the chances of survival of the remaining men, if the Japanese didn't intervene. The fighters from the carriers were armed, gassed and sent out to provide cover for the Catalinas.
The lifeboat Gene Ness had been floating with was at the south west edge of what was once the battle area. A Catalina landed near it on their first run. The plane unloaded supplies including food, water and two of the three rafts the Catalina carried. These were inflated and all of the men in the water were barely able to cram into them. In addition to getting them out of the salt water, the fresh water and food were crucial to the short range survival of the men. The Catalina took on thirteen injured men, and a doctor and medical corpsman to look after them in flight. The men on the rafts looked longingly as the Catalina taxied away from them, took off and headed south. Just after it took off a B-17 flew over them and dropped another raft. Gene Ness and another man swam over to it and inflated it. By the time they got it inflated, five other men who had been floating in the water joined them. They paddled the newly inflated raft to the other rafts and lashed them together. They would have to wait for rescue. At least now there was food and water and enough space in the rafts for the living, if the Japanese did not come this way.
As night fell the men on the rafts lighted a flare every fifteen minutes to help the men in the water find refuge. During the night the rafts filled and more men gathered around them. Two more rafts joined the party just before dawn. The men on the rafts switched places with the men in the water to give the men in the water time on the raft. The injured were given permanent places on the rafts. Several men died from wounds and were placed in the water. Hopefully help would come before anyone died of exposure.
Ted Marks and Dean Stenger were in a California lifeboat with seven other badly injured men and two sick bay orderlies. They were moved to the life boat when it was determined that the California would probably not be saved. They were launched with the orderlies and as many medical supplies as the men could carry to the boat before it was launched. All of the injured were in jeopardy if they were not to get medical treatment soon as were several of the others. Nine more injured were placed in the boat after the California went down. The medics did their best to treat the wounds but their skills and resources were limited. Word was passed to find the ship's doctor without success. He was missing.
Twelve B-17 bombers were put in the air at 1400 to find and bomb the Japanese fleet. Their pilots had no over water experience and were unable to even find the fleet although they were given a good location, course and speed. They returned to Pearl with their bombs just after 1700 and the bombers were loaded with rafts, food and water. They accompanied the Catalinas on their second trip to the carrier site and dropped the supplies. Although they couldn't land, they could each carry a considerable weight of emergency supplies and drop them for the survivors. The twelve bombers were able to carry more than three times the supplies the fifty Catalinas carried. Although some of the supplies were dropped too far from survivors, most found their mark. These flights made a significant contribution to the survival and rescue effort.
The Tone carried two float planes, one of which had been shot down over the Enterprise earlier in the day. Now the second pilot was waiting to be catapulted. As he looked out over the cowling of the plane he realized that only one of the six float planes returned from the morning flight. Now he and five float planes from other cruisers would fly over both battle sites and determine what ships were still afloat. He knew he would probably not return from that flight. He was happy he had mailed a lock of his hair to his wife before leaving Japan. Then there had been shouts of victory, now he wondered if it was really worthwhile. The hand of the catapult officer came up, he pushed the throttle forward and then felt the plane being thrown into the air.
The I-20 reported the third carrier sinking and the I-9 reported the sinking of the Pennsylvania. Both submarines reported only a few destroyers afloat in each area. Ozawa wanted a confirmation of the sinking of the carriers and battleships before he committed his force to the attack of the islands, he didn't want to be attacked by a carrier or surface fleet while his planes were over Pearl. He had one damaged carrier, she was out of service and the chances of saving her were not good. His air crews were tired, with providing fighter support for the attacks and CAP coverage, some of the fighters had been in the air for as much as six hours. The strain of this kind of flying is intense. In addition to the losses, quite a few planes had battle damage and mechanical failures. His mechanics were also being stressed to the limit, if he launched now many planes would not be ready to fly. If he pushed them too much, some would fly but might be lost due to maintenance errors. Although he wanted to hit Pearl now, he couldn't commit to a major attack without some of his pilots and crews having some rest. Moreover, he didn't want a carrier force attacking him while his planes were on their way to Pearl and he was defenseless. He would wait. The float planes would be over the carrier area in an hour and a half, then he would decide. While he was waiting for word, his pilots, except for a small CAP and the float planes, were getting some badly needed rest and the planes were being serviced.
Lt. Markle in a Dauntless dive bomber was flying as wingman to Lt. Boise in a Wildcat fighter, together they were serving as an escort for a Catalina over the battle site. It was an unusual escort but today you made do with what you had available. The two land based planes circled overhead as the seaplane landed on the water. Just to the east Markle spotted a Japanese float plane. Although the dive bomber had a forward firing machine gun like a fighter, Markle deferred on the attack to the more "senior" Boise who had dogfighting experience. Lt. Boise turned toward the float plane with Markle on his tail, like a good wingman. Markle would stay there, no matter what, he had no desire to be alone in the hostile sky. With one short burst Boise dispatched the float plane. As it burst into flames, to the north, he spotted another. Boise applied power and in just thirty seconds was just astern of not one but two planes. One had been obscured in a cloud. Lt. Boise fired and both went down. He pressed the button and said, "That's four today." Just ahead was another one, he pulled up behind it and fired a burst. It too went down. Just as it hit the water Markle was yelling over the radio. Lt. Boise, the first man shot down in what would soon be known as World War II in the Pacific had become an ace on the same day.
The presence of the float planes was reported to Pearl. The only plane to escape Lt. Boise's guns was from the Tone. His catapult shot had been early so he had exhausted his fuel and cleared the area before the Catalinas arrived. The others had just completed their sweeps and joined up to return to the fleet together. Lt. Boise returned to Pearl not knowing that his actions would significantly change the plan of attack for the Japanese. Later analysis would show that Lt. Boise had given the American Navy its first major break of the day. Four float planes weren't much, some of the other pilots would scoff at Boise's ace status, shooting down what they considered as less than real war planes but his action had more impact than any would imagine. Only after the war would those who read the Japanese records begin to see the significance. Of the four planes Lt. Boise shot down, one pilot got off a warning. He reported being under attack by an American carrier fighter. His report was one hundred percent accurate, unfortunately for the Japanese they didn't know it had flown from Pearl. The report of the plane caused Ozawa to now be concerned that an unreported carrier was still in the area. They had dispatched three American carriers, but Ozawa knew the Americans had four in the Pacific. He had not been informed the fourth, the Saratoga, was in dry dock on the American west coast. The Tone pilot reported no surface ships afloat except destroyers which seemed headed toward Pearl. Ozawa decided to hedge his bets. He had lost almost half of his fighters. He would send twenty five of the remaining ones out with the bombers and keep the others over his carriers as a CAP. They would launch at 1730 which would put them over Pearl at about 1900, just before the light started to fail. The planes would have to make a night landing but they had practiced this and it should be no problem.
The primitive radar reported a massive formation of aircraft at about one hundred miles out, heading for Pearl. The fighter strips were alerted and planes made ready to meet the threat. They wouldn't take off until about 1840 so they would be in a position to attack the Japanese but would have sufficient fuel to stay in the air. The island had two hundred fighters to oppose the Japanese air fleet which was now estimated at just about two hundred fifty planes. The fighters from the carriers were escorting the Catalinas and were not available for defense of the islands. The bombers and torpedo planes from the carriers were serviced with fuel to allow them to take off for protection but there were insufficient ground crews to handle the arming. The flight crews worked to arm the guns, nobody wanted to take off without machine gun bullets for defense. With no bombs to take, the gas tanks were full to the brim. When the Japanese force was confirmed, these planes took off and flew south, out of harms way as did any other aircraft that could get off the ground. A flight of B-17's that had taken off from the mainland and flown to Pearl had landed early in the morning. Their crews had worked all day to get them refueled and ready to fly, just in case they were needed. They had not been ready to go with the Catalinas, now they were taking off to head south, out of harms way. Their day of battle would come.
The battle was joined when the Japanese were about thirty miles north of the islands. Over one hundred of the American fighters were obsolete and were no match for the Japanese planes. The action reports were confused but later evaluations would show that over forty five of these old planes were shot down by the attacking the bombers and torpedo planes. All but ten of the remaining fifty five obsolete planes were shot down by the fighters. The ten that escaped were damaged and landed at the nearest field which in some cases was in fact literally a field rather than an airport. Forty two of the pilots were killed, three more were seriously injured and would never fly again. The other hundred fighters were newer models which were more of a match for the Japanese planes. They were able to shoot down forty five of the bombers and all of the fighters but not before the majority of the bombers were over their targets. The bombs rained down on targets all over the islands. The floating dry dock that had been occupied by the Pennsylvania was destroyed and a bomb hit the main gasoline storage at Hickem field. A worse disaster was to hit the Navy. The word of the bombers had caused the Utah and Ogala to try to leave port. At least in open water they would have a chance. The Utah got just past the middle of the channel when two torpedoes hit, sinking it in the channel and effectively blocking it. The trapped Ogala tried to turn but was hit by torpedoes fired from within the harbor. Only three of the midget subs made it. They had done more damage with their six torpedoes than had any other group. They blocked the harbor entrance. The Ward was preparing to slip its moorings when it was hit by a torpedo. It sunk into the mud with its stack sticking out of the water. Not a single vessel in the harbor escaped undamaged.
The returning air strike was recovered and the task force headed west to pull out of carrier aircraft range for the night. Ozawa was still concerned that there may be an American carrier lurking to his east. The cost of the day was high, but the results were impressive. The American Pacific fleet, the biggest roadblock to Japanese expansion goals was all but gone. One carrier, the Saratoga remained and although Ozawa did not know where it was, it was on the west coast, in dry dock for repairs. No American ship committed to the battle over the size of a destroyer escaped that day. The two submarines off stationed off to the south of Pearl were signaled to return. Of the twelve subs committed to battle, only seven would return, the two from south of Pearl, the I-9, the I-37 and the three subs that sunk the USS Enterprise. The price was low, the Japanese had lost only one carrier, five submarines and some air crews in the process of wiping out the American Fleet. Admiral Ozawa smiled as he congratulated the returning air crews as they officially turned for home. They would get plenty of rest. It had been a satisfactory performance. The admiral passed the word to all on the fleet, the battle was over, they were victorious.
Four passenger liners in the Ohau harbor were visited by military police carrying papers from Admiral Stark. The ships were commandeered, loaded quickly with available supplies and medical teams and set out northward with dispatch. The civilian crews were given the choice of going along or staying behind. Very few left the ships. They would arrive the next afternoon at the scene of the sinking to pick up as many survivors as possible, if the Japanese didn't intervene. All over the islands, ships were commandeered and sent north. The action would later be called the American Dunkirk.
The twenty two B-17's were fueled and flown off to the south before the attack on the seventh. Mark Fuller flew the lead plane in the third formation. There should have been twenty four planes, three formations of eight each but two planes had mechanical aborts and remained on the ground. The twenty two planes circled to the south during the attack and survived the bombing by the Japanese. At the end of the day they returned. Now they were serviced and took off to bomb the carriers. Fuel for them had to be pumped in by hand because of the damage done by the raid the previous day. The bombs were hand-cranked into the bomb bays. Most of the mechanical equipment of the base had been damaged or destroyed. A Catalina pilot, Vic Weaver, who had crashed his overloaded plane on landing at Pearl was sent along as a naval advisor and waist gunner in the lead B-17. He had protested the assignment but the CO's look told him to go quietly. He had violated so many safety rules on his second return flight from the battle area that the incident form would not hold the list, and the landing that totaled the plane was the predictable result. But he reminded himself as he wrote the report, "I got them home alive, no matter what the Navy says, I didn't leave them out there to die." Vic knew he could not take off from the battle scene and leave any of the injured on the water so he had piled in more and more, dumped equipment and made an impossible takeoff. He flew to Pearl where he ran out of fuel just short of the runway and crashed. There were only minor injuries and everyone survived, but the Catalina was junk. No matter what the CO said, Vic knew he had done right. But to be banished to a waist gun position on a B-17 was the ultimate insult! He was one of the best hunters in the Navy, to be put on an Army plane was an insult and to be there as a gunner was unthinkable. After takeoff the B-17's climbed to over eighteen thousand feet and flew to the point of the last known Japanese position and course had suggested. It was bitter cold in the B-17, the wind whistled through the waist gun ports. In spite of the heavy clothing and the oxygen Vic was cold and he could feel the lack of oxygen draining strength from his body. Vick noted that the cockpit of a Catalina was no easy chair but it beat the waist of a B-17 any day. At least it wasn't drafty. Vic vowed to eat crow with the CO when he returned, anything to avoid future B-17 duty. He was sure this flight was for nothing. What could he do that the B-17 crews couldn't? And he was sure that if fighters came up he would never get the gun into action, he woud be a liability, at least the regular gunner would have defended his plane.
When they didn't sight the carriers at the coordinates they were given, Vic suggested they spread out line abreast and head due west for as long as fuel permitted. It wasn't military doctrine, it was just what Vic thought would work, after all, that was how Catalinas flew search patterns, shouldn't it work for bombers? Within twenty five minutes they spotted the fleet. The B-17's were coming up right behind them and although it seemed to good to be true, there was no air cover. The Japanese fighters were down at 5000 feet to protect from a torpedo attack. Vic ordered the B-17's to pull into a single file and they bombed like Navy horizontal bombers, each passing over the ships and dropping their stick of bombs. Mark Fuller was first in his flight, the others followed. Again it wasn't accepted doctrine, it was what Vic suggested and the B-17 pilots didn't know enough to do otherwise. After all, he was the Navy advisor, they were bombing ships and he apparently was the expert. Because of the cloud cover and their high altitude, the planes weren't spotted until the first bombs were on their way down. As the twenty two B-17's retired, two of the carriers were hit and were sinking. In both cases, most of their air crews were killed in the bombing. One additional carrier was hit, the bomb landed in the area in which the air crews and plane crews spent off duty time. Over half of the air crews were killed. Two of the B-17's sustained damage from fighters when they retired. This air attack had done more to damage the Japanese fleet than any other action in what would be known as the First Battle of Pearl. Photos would show that only four percent of the bombs dropped actually hit targets, what seems to be a deplorable number, but these few bombs would cause the Japanese fleet to turn back for now to regroup. The rag tag last ditch attack by the untrained fortress pilots carrying the wrong bombs and led by a Catalina pilot reject who did all the wrong things was a significant victory. The attack was one of desperation, not a well planned operation, the actual attack was contrary to any established military doctrine. The twenty two B-17's were each loaded with forty bombs, one hundred pounders, most of them of the anti-personnel type. The choice had been to bomb with each plane carrying four one thousand pounders but there were only enough of the large bombs for two planes and when they were brought out of storage they couldn't be loaded into the planes because the handling equipment for the heavy bombs had been destroyed. The Japanese attack had hit the only bomb dump that contained the larger bombs. The bombers were loaded with one hundred pounders, the only thing that was available. This was contrary to military doctrine of the day, anything less than five hundred pounders were considered too light for anti-ship attacks. Later assessments showed that carpeting moving ships from high level was the only way to have a likelihood of hits by high level heavy bombers. The Japanese bomb that hit the large bomb dump had insured the success of the mission to bomb the carriers. With twenty two bombs and four percent hits, it would have been unlikely that there would have been one hit. With 880 bombs, four percent was 35 bombs, or about 3500 pounds, less than the weight of two 2000 pound bombs. But on the thin-skinned carriers, the hundred pounders were adequate. Against battleships the raid would have been of no effect, but the carriers were all too vulnerable.
One of the two damaged B-17's was being flown by Mark Fuller. A Jap fighter got in one pass and laced his plane with cannon shells. The burst caught the front section of the plane, the co-pilot and waist gunners were dead. In addition to him, the top gunner, the radio man and the ball gunner were wounded. The navigator had come to the cockpit and tied up a wound in his ankle. He continued to fly the damaged plane, the navigator slid the copilot's body out of the right seat and slipped into it. Mark could not put pressure on the rudder to make right turns, he would have to provide that support. The tail gunner had come forward to care for the other wounded. Mark must stay conscious or they would all be killed. Two hours later Mark landed the plane. They carried him, unconscious, to the waiting ambulance. He was taken to the hospital and treated, the bones about three inches above his ankle were shattered and he had lost a lot of blood. The bones in his lower leg were pieced together and his leg was placed in a full cast. He would need some lengthy recuperation. He was placed on the list of those who would return to the states by first available transport.
Had the information about the effectiveness of the raid been available a second B-17 raid might have been attempted. For a loss of only a few air crewmen the Japanese had lost two carriers and some very valuable air crews. The Army brass at Pearl considered the raid harassment, nothing more, no worth the effort to mount a second raid. In the confusion of the first raid the cameras on the B-17's had been not loaded with film and the high command did not believe the reports of the air crews. A second raid was not considered worth the effort until the Catalina photo run the next morning. By the time this information was evaluated, the Japanese force was out of range for even the B-17's. Later the AAF officer in charge would be reprimanded for the decision to not mount a second raid. Vic, Mark and the other leaders were commended for the raid.
The senate chamber was packed as the president addressed the nation. He was somber as he talked. His popularity would plummet as the magnitude of the disaster became known. The final death toll would exceed eight thousand men, most killed in the sinking of the Battleships and Carriers. At least another three hundred men sustained permanent injuries. In one day the US Pacific Fleet had almost ceased to exist, its men were without arms, and its primary base was in ruins. Even the future of the United States as a nation was in doubt. Those who believed in ultimate victory knew the war would clearly be a very long and hard one. One columnist likened the defeat to the battles of the Spanish American War, after which the Spanish Navy was never a significant force. There were many who thought the American Navy was history.
The commandeered passenger liners began to arrive at the battle areas late in the afternoon. Men were pulled from the water until each ship was loaded. Musicians and clerks who stayed on ships helped registered seamen and medical teams. When a ship was too full to take on any more of the men it was sent south. The departure of the first two ships created a feeling of hopelessness for the men in the water, but the appearance of more ships and the report that was passed that more were coming quelled this. It was only when they landed at Pearl that the seriousness of the situation hit them, only six of the war ships that sailed out would return, all of these destroyers.
Ted Marks had been unconscious for over four hours when he and Dean Stenger were lifted from the lifeboat and placed on the deck of one of the liners. Both of them were evaluated and found to be in serious condition. To operating theaters were ready on the ship when they were brought aboard, Ted was taken to the one, Dean was held, there were many who were in more serious condition. Both underwent surgery on the way back to Pearl. Gene Ness was on one of the last ships to come in. As soon as he landed he began looking for his brother. He found him in a field hospital, waiting to have his arm treated. Dick Ness couldn't believe his eyes when Gene walked into the tent. He had been told the Pennsylvania had blown up and all aboard were lost. That would have been true but for the three men being thrown overboard just before the fatal attack.
The sea battle north of Pearl on December 7, 1941 and the Japanese attack on Pearl left Pearl badly damaged and nearly all of US Pacific Fleet at the bottom of the ocean. Never before had the US Navy suffered such a crushing defeat. In fact, no navy had ever experienced such a defeat, including the Spanish Navy at the hands of the American Navy in the Battle of Manila. Attacks on other U. S. bases in the Pacific began to reap substantial benefits for the Japanese.
Within a week many of the injured were placed on ships to be taken to the states. Ted Marks, Dean Stenger, and Mark Fuller were on one of those ships. They were assigned to Mercy for treatment. Carol was on an orthopedic floor, Ted and Dean were assigned there. Mark was on a medical floor, he had been running a fever since he was wounded. The day he arrived Carol came to his hospital room at the end of her shift. She was crying. He held her and finally she began to relate about her day. She asked if he remembered Ted and Dean, he replied that he did not, there were too many men on the hospital ship.
She finally choked out, "That could have been you, or worse, five of the other guys in that turret didn't make it back. And three of the men on your plane, and if you'd have passed out five minutes sooner, none of the ones that did would have made it, including you." She put her hand on her expanding belly, "Your baby and I need you. I want you to stay here with me, not flying all over the Pacific being shot at."
"I'll be here for you."
She started to cry again, "But I want you, I love you and no matter what happens, I'm going to be there. I can't believe what happened today. Ted has no feet, they had to amputate between his knees and ankles and Dean lost his left leg above the knee. Hon, I need you."
"I know that, but what brought that on?"
"Ted's girlfriend came in this morning, she looked at him and left crying. I can't believe that she didn't care enough to hold him, love him and tell him everything will be fine, that she'll be with him. He's had a terrible day, he's in a lot of pain and I think he's thinking of suicide. To survive all of that to kill yourself over a snotty girl. It isn't fair."
He held her the remainder of the evening, she ordered dinner with him. Mark was still feverish and was generally not feeling well. Carol felt his left toes, they were warm, almost too warm, she thought.
The doctor was not happy with Mark's fever the next day so they removed the cast. The wound was not healing well and an X-ray indicated the bone was not healing either. They replaced the cast and started some medication. By the following morning his leg was even more tender and his fever had gone up an additional half degree. The doctor ordered another x-ray. The diagnosis was an infection, osteomylitis or possibly both. By evening they scheduled him for surgery, they cleaned the wound and redressed it.
The next morning his fever was even higher and his foot was throbbing and red. They cut off the cast, there were angry red streaks near the wound. By noon he was back in an OR. When he returned to his room he was an Left Below the knee (LBK) amputee.
Carol was coming from her shift to be with him, she did not know of his surgery until she cam to his room that evening. She saw his stump pulled up in traction and ran to him. She hung to him and cried for a long time. He was sullen and in a lot of pain. Finally she dried her eyes and put her arm around him and kissed him. "I'll be with you, no matter what."
"But I'm..."
"You're my husband. And I love you and I said till death do us part. And I still love you. I guess I found out today what Ted's girlfriend is going through, maybe I spoke too soon. You know, she came back today and she's being a real rock to him. She's a night nurse in the hospital, I didn't recognize her. She just had to get over the shock." She held him till she had to leave.
The next evening he was somewhat better, his overall condition started to improve. By the end of the year he was home with her. He was learning to get by on crutches and as soon as his stump healed more he would be fitted with an artificial foot.
The Japanese planning included several other offensive operations that would commence at sunrise local time in Malay and the Philippines. The result would be the expulsion of American and British troops from these areas. By February the Solomon's had also been taken and Australia was under direct attack. The Japanese were able to land forces on the northern part of Australia in early March and in spite of everything the Australians could muster, were pressing south. Everywhere the Rising Sun was ascending.
Two committees were created to investigate the Pearl disaster, one by the President and another by congress. The committees filed conflicting reports just before the new year and the newspapers picked up the controversy. The congressional report blamed the President and the military for committing the fleet to battle without adequate planning and congressional approval. It blamed the military for ineptness. It blamed the President for the lack of military readiness. The Presidential committee blamed the congress for military budget cuts and other congressional actions that adversely impacted the readiness. The military leaders were looked upon as inept. Congress was painted as a villain. The only government agency not seriously impacted by the action was the FBI. Its competence in apprehending the Japanese spies had been considered an adequate response.
The nation was divided too. Japanese Americans from the west coast of the United States were interned and moved to camps in the central plains. This action was taken to prevent sabotage but in a sense it protected the internees from the remainder of the population which was alternately venting its anger on anything Japanese and the American government. The fact that a person was an American citizen was unimportant, if he looked Oriental he was the enemy. Over a hundred deaths of Japanese Americans occurred during early 1942 which were the result of the hatred for anything Oriental. The internment camps, as bad as they were, probably saved lives.
The American Navy was devastated by the First Battle of Pearl. The only forces which hadn't been ravaged were the submarines. Even though they had lost one of their tenders and the use of the submarine support base at Pearl they were still an effective force. In the late thirties, the submarine command in the Pacific had been split into three segments, but with the loss of the bases in the central and south Pacific, the command was pulled back to one central command at Pearl. This brought a coherence to the submarine force, essential for the effort before it.
Between Christmas and the New Year's Day the Sculpin returned to Pearl with nearly half of her torpedoes. Twelve of the fifteen torpedoes she fired failed to explode. Captain Fulton stomped in to the Admiral's office and made his report, in person. The torpedoes he fired at high deflection angles hit AND exploded. With one exception the ones he fired at a ship at nearly ninety degrees hit and failed to explode. Captain Fulton returned to the submarine at the dock with Admiral Short and the Sculpin turned back to sea. Three torpedoes were fired at the half sunken wreck of the Utah. To the admiral's surprise there were no explosions. The Sculpin put back to port and divers were dispatched to look for the torpedoes. One was found quickly, it had hit the Utah but the firing pin in the warhead had flattened and had not been driven home to explode the charge. While this one was being studied, the other two were found. These too had flattened firing pins.
Pins were taken from two torpedoes on board the Sculpin. A check showed the metal hadn't been properly hardened, hence the softer metal would flatten, on impact, jam and not explode the war head. One of the maintenance men who helped dismantle the torpedoes asked for a couple of the firing pins. He took them to the workshop, heated them to red hot and then quenched them in a bucket of sea water. He brought them out to the admiral. "Try these." He explained the process. The two were placed in the torpedoes on the Sculpin and she made to sea again. This time she fired two torpedoes, both exploded.
Within a couple of days every firing pin in the Pearl inventory had been processed and subs at sea were notified of the flaw. Several outbound subs decided to harden the pins on their own and proceed with the patrol. The result of this was that the men left knowing the torpedoes would work. Without that change, the submarines would not have been an effective weapon.
The carrier Hornet cleared port in February but was kept near the California coast for protection. Nobody ever defined if the goal was to protect our only carrier in the Pacific or the cities on the west coast. About half of the Navy pilots and planes that survived December seven were brought back to the mainland and based on the west coast for protection of cities. A few of them were transferred to other carriers as replacements. The remainder were left at Pearl to defend it in the event the Japanese were to try to occupy the islands.
On December 22, 1941 the Joint chiefs met to map strategy for the defeat of the Axis. The American policy would be defined by the phrase, "Hitler First." This meant that defeating Japan would have to wait until the Germans and Italians were defeated. Little material was moved from the Atlantic and this was limited to whatever was considered essential to the safety of the American West Coast. The only crack in the firmness of this policy was the creation of a task force to determine what action could be taken at minimum cost to the remainder of the war effort to interfere with Japan's expansion and ultimately place us in a position to defeat the forces of the empire. The Pacific Defense Task Force as it was called, was to deliberate only two weeks. It returned to the Joint Chiefs several alternatives.
The first alternative was to move a minimum of three carriers and their screens into the Pacific and with the Hornet make an all out attack against the Japanese. This was rejected. The U-boat problem in the Atlantic was worsening and the carriers were the backbone of the fight. They couldn't be spared. Under this facade was a fear of committing a large fleet to battle with the Japanese. The American command had no idea of the extent of the damage done in the B-17 attack and still considered the Japanese carriers a very formidable foe. Many feared the Japanese command was invincible, no American Naval commander had won a victory against them.
The second alternative was to pull back all forces to Midway and Pearl. If Midway was challenged, it would be evacuated. Pearl might have to be sacrificed if the Japanese mounted a serious attack that couldn't be contained. This was vetoed as unacceptable. It conceded the control of the Pacific to the Japanese and left no way to take it back.
The third alternative was accepted by default. All but two American submarines and one submarine tender of the Atlantic fleet were to be transferred to the Pacific Fleet. The submarine wasn't considered a useful weapon in the Atlantic, with the German and Italian surface fleets not being a serious threat. The submarines in the Atlantic were used only for very limited actions, generally support for the OSS and specialized recon. For a time, these transferred subs and the Pacific Fleet subs comprised the major portion of the Pacific Fleet. Pearl and Midway would be defended at all cost, up to the limit of the forces in the Pacific. The Pacific commanders would have to make do with what they had, they couldn't expect to have any additional forces assigned to their commands. The submarines and the tenders were barely in place when they were thrown into what would be known the second battle of Pearl in late June of 1942.
Mark Fuller was in the doctor's office again, this time his stump was covered with a plaster cast, this was preparation for his getting an artificial leg. Two days later he tried it for the first time. It was bloody awkward, he could get around on crutches better. But in a few days the use improved. They celebrated the event of his first few steps with a cane within two weeks. The following day he reported to the base doctor. Although not fit for combat duty he was now able to assume a desk position. He was assigned to the base supply section. Carol sighed a relief, Mark would be here with her when the baby came. His loss of a leg was devastating but with it she knew he would not be returning to combat.
The U-boat menace in the Atlantic was steadily growing worse. Each week closed with more ships sunk, more men lost at sea, more supplies ending up at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and England's food and fuel situation becoming more serious. Something must be done quickly to stop the U-boats and the sinkings. President Roosevelt called in General Marshall the Secretary of the Navy and the his staff to discuss the situation. Everything possible must be done to find and kill these menacing undersea boats. A task force was named to determine what could be done to neutralize the threat. Before men could be sent across the Atlantic to reclaim the continent the U-boat must be purged from the sea lanes. The task force was given three months to report back to the President.
The Japanese sortied a fleet including four fleet carriers, two light carriers, their destroyer and cruiser screens and the ships to transport and support an occupation force of over 30,000 men. The Naval force was in the same order of size as the one that hit Pearl on December 7. They would bypass Midway, it would be easy to starve out after the fall of Pearl. Its supply line would be severed, it would become an orphan. This carrier fleet had one difference from the one that fought in December, two thirds of the pilots were new, many seasoned pilots were shot down over the American fleet and Pearl and the B-17 raid had taken an even greater toll than the air combat. The American pilots that faced them were relatively seasoned, most were veterans of the first battle. If there was a bright spot in the first battle, it was these pilots. The Americans however had no knowledge of this so when the fleet was spotted by a submarine, they considered it more dangerous than it was.
The Pacific Fleet, or more correctly, what was left of it, was dispatched to meet the threat. As they approached Pearl, the fifteen American subs, aided by Catalinas and the B-17's, some from the bypassed island of Midway turned the Japanese fleet. The air arm was responsible for sinking seventeen ships, and it provided the information that kept the submarines in position to mount nearly continuous torpedo attacks. Never before had aircraft and submarines coordinated efforts to this extent. The Japanese fleet could never relax, tiring the men who should be able to protect it and reduce their efficiency. Only a few visionaries in the military had ever even considered the existence of a synergism of these two forces working together. None of these had even considered it might be a significant factor. By now Pearl had nearly 200 B-17's, all had limited capacity to operate at night and because of their endurance the flights were timed to keep nearly continuous surveillance of the Japanese force. Several of the bombers from each flight carried a smaller bomb load and more fuel so they could remain in the area after they dropped their bombs to provide surveillance. They guided in the next flight and passed positions on to the Navy. They were given submarine frequencies and were instructed to give position, course and speed reports on the Submarine frequencies every fifteen minutes. These planes took some real assaults from the Zeros, staying in the area of a fully armed fleet carrier had risks, but the action was not all one sided. The Japanese fighter pilots acquired a healthy respect for the B-17 during this action. They learned the B-17's that stayed in the fleet area to engage in surveillance could not be brushed away or shot down by fighters as easily as the Catalinas and the float planes. The B-17's packed guns for protection as attacking fighters soon learned. In his action report one Japanese fighter pilot described the B-17. "This plane seems to be able to climb to heaven, fly forever, drop massive amounts of bombs, absorb machine gun bullets and cannon shells, keep flying after being damaged and shoot back effectively and continuously while doing it. If there is a weak spot in the plane's defense, I have not been able to find it, but one thing I have learned, to come in from six o'clock is to court death. I am the only survivor of my squadron. Twice my wingman has been killed in a six o'clock attack." That pilot was fished out of the water twice during the battle when tail gunners of B-17's were able to disable his aircraft. He survived the air battles only to be killed in a bombing raid. Many of his squadron mates were not so fortunate. An ace with nine kills, a veteran of the first battle of Pearl, he was unable to score a single kill on a B-17.
A few bombers from each formation would stay on station after the raid, shadowing the Japanese Fleet and reporting its position for later flights and submarines. These sightings by the aircraft were quickly broadcast to submarines so they could move into position to punish the enemy. The Japanese didn't really loose the battle, they just failed to win by finding it prudent to retreat in the face of continuous attacks from above and below the sea. For the first time in naval warfare, a surface fleet was turned back without pressing its land attack or meeting surface ships. Only a very few advocates of air or submarine warfare had ever envisioned such an action. The backbone of the American Naval strength was now the submarine and the heavy bomber.
Ironically, the most crucial sinkings during the battle were the eight fleet oilers, not warships. Luckily, the submarine Gulfin was southwest of the battle area when it was recalled from patrol to join the battle. She ran in at high speed in what her captain assumed might be a futile attempt to attack the fleet from behind based on the information he was given. Older and slower than her sisters, he was sure her speed was not adequate to catch the Japanese battle fleet but she was the only sub in position to try a catch up pattern and he had to try. Her track crossed the station of four Japanese fleet oilers well behind the fleet and she sank all four of them before she was detected. Not a single distress message went out from the first group. Not only was the Japanese fleet deprived of fuel, they were not aware of the situation. The Gulfin had only ten torpedoes when she was recalled, she was near the end of her patrol, was very low on fuel, and in the first action she expended eight of the torpedoes, two for each ship. The run in burned most of the fuel he could expend and still have enough to return to Pearl at an economical speed. The first attack was made just before dawn. Her captain held the report of the sightings till the torpedoes were fired, then sent out a report of the location of the action before diving to reload the remaining two torpedoes. The Squalus was directed to that point to hunt for more oilers while the Gulfin retired to Pearl for refueling and rearming. The Squalus found two more oilers and dispatched them and a cruiser that was sent to screen them. The destroyer screen delivered a punishing depth charge attack, but the Squalus was able to slip away with only minor damage. The losses to the Gulfin and Squalus left the Japanese with no alternative but to retreat, and at low speed to conserve fuel, leaving them as prey of the American bombers for a longer period of time.
The Greyfish was a beneficiary of this attack. She participated in an attack on a Japanese Assault at had been sent to occupy Pearl. The Naval Battle fleet withdrew after four days of submarine attacks, short two of its four fleet carriers and thirty five other ships, including several troop carriers and thousands of crack troops. The Greyfish had nine ships painted on its conn when it arrived at the temporary submarine base set up just outside the Harbor at Pearl. One of these represented a troop ship carrying over 3000 Japanese assault troops. Captain Smith withdrew from the action only after expending the full load of torpedoes. In an unusual action, his deck gun was used to dispatch one of the tankers. Back at Pearl the Greyfish couldn't enter the harbor because the channel was blocked by a cruiser that had been sunk during the recent submarine attack. The I-9m had returned to Pearl and carried on a lone attack on the ships in the harbor. The Greyfish provisioned from a freighter anchored in the outer harbor, her crew did most of the provisioning and repairs. The submarine tender was also sunk by the I-9 with nearly all of her crew. The Greyfish put back to sea with only eighteen torpedoes, six short of the normal load. It was simple mathematics, there were thirteen submarines to service, two of the fifteen had been lost in battle and the Scorpion was badly damaged. After emergency repairs were made, anything the Scorpion wouldn't need for the trip home was removed and she was sent to the mainland for repairs. The floating dry dock that was needed for her repair was a mess of twisted metal. All but the six torpedoes in her forward tubes were removed to service the other boats. None the less, only 214 torpedoes were available including those already on the subs and the ones from the damaged Scorpion.
Fresh meat was in short supply but they were given canned meat as an alternative. Jack mused as he helped load the supplies, "If the submarine force is rationing food and torpedoes, things are really tough." And tough it had been since December seven.
The president's task force on Atlantic U-boat sinking returned with several alternatives. They ranged from moving Pacific based ships to the Atlantic to exploring new technologies that would help locate and sink the U-boats. The ships they needed weren't available and wouldn't be available for a long time with the Japanese menace. A solution was needed now. Ships couldn't be built fast enough to cover all of the convoys and the aircraft couldn't cover all of the surface of the Atlantic. One of the proposals was to set up monitoring stations to accurately locate the U-boats and track them into the Atlantic. They would concentrate on hitting the submarines, make them the target, search and destroy, rather than trying to be in a defensive position on every convoy. To use the resources at hand more effectively the convoys must cross undefended while roving attack craft took out the U-boats. To do that, the Navy must have exact positions of the menacing craft. The proposal called for every German port be covered and U-boats tracked as they moved across the Atlantic. In the meantime every destroyer and frigate would be placed on duty with convoys, the faster merchant ships would be fitted with guns manned by Marine gun crews, when attacked in a convoy these would use their speed to avoid torpedo attacks and try to help defend the convoy. If the submarine were to surface the gun crews would attempt to cripple or sink it. This was a stop-gap measure, till better solutions could become realities. The faster merchies were also equipped with slow sinking depth charges that could be rolled off the stern.
After the second battle of Pearl, the Japanese concentrated on the drive to the south. Eastward expansion was halted, the Japanese high command considered it too expensive for now. This would be pursued later, when the south western Pacific was a Japanese lake and the resources of that vast area were available to the empire.
Although the American plan was Hitler first, several concessions were made to the Pacific front. Production of the planes needed to continue the war on Japan was stepped up. Improved models of the Catalinas were sent to Pearl and some B-17's were modified to fly at longer ranges and these were also made available. The major efforts were made in the submarine fleet. By the middle of 1943, one new submarine would be built for every one that existed in December 1941. In addition, ten large submarines, each four times the size of the attack sub were under construction. These would serve as supply ships, each would enable several submarines to stay on patrol for as long as three times as if they had to return to Pearl to resupply. This would help the submarine force to further punish the enemy, particularly in view of the loss of the western Pacific bases. Without these a submarine used over half of its fuel transiting to and from the patrol area. Bombing of Japan was considered impossible with current planes or in fact anything on the drawing board so development of long range aircraft was relegated to a very low priority.
One major concern of the American military leaders was the lack of knowledge about activities on the Japanese islands. Submarines could only provide shore line reconnaissance and for the most part neither the quantity or quality of information gained was worth the risks of diverting submarines from their other tasks. There was no organized spy network to rely on and the islands were well beyond the range of any aircraft. One option explored was to use a B-17F, stripped to the bone and loaded with fuel. Even for this modified configuration the distance was much too great. In addition, because of the amount of time of exposure to enemy action, even the durable B-17 was too slow and vulnerable to have any chance of survival without an escort. The Japanese fighters could be massed against a single plane and make attacks for over three hours. No plane could be expected to survive such punishment.
The solution to the problem came from an unexpected source, but like all good things it took time and help from unlikely sources. Boeing had worked on several high altitude research projects by modifying existing aircraft, an inexpensive way to produce a test bed for a new idea. In one such test they modified a B-17 extensively. It was intended as the test bed for systems and concepts to be used in a plane they hoped would succeed the B-17. The number of gun turrets was reduced to four, they were controlled remotely, the crew was reduced to four or five and they were housed in a pressurized compartment. The machine guns in the turrets were replaced by 20 MM cannon packing a greater range and punch than any machine gun. The engines were replaced by newer models that were lighter, more efficient, more powerful and could produce that power at altitudes of more than ten thousand feet higher than any other engine. The modified plane could operate at altitudes that were above effective flack gun range and the operating ceiling of most fighters. The profile of the plane was changed and its top speed rivaled that of all but the top line fighters of 1942. Even if they had the speed, few fighters could even get close at their top altitude, and then only after long, hard climbs. Only four of these planes were built, and they were scheduled for use in planning for the next bomber. Jimmy Dolittle was on the team to make some of the test flights and he returned to duty on the west coast excited about the plane. The maximum range of the plane was less then half of what was needed to get to Japan and back but Dolittle believed there was a way to increase it, even if he didn't know how. He had a one track mind. There had to be a way to bomb the Japanese.
By the end of November 1942 he had prepared a plan to make recon flights over Japan using them. The idea was spawned in a bar. Dolittle was complaining to another pilot about the limited range of aircraft. A visiting naval officer who was extremely drunk looked up at him and laughed, "You fly boys ought wise up and do what the navy does on long cruises, take along a oiler." Of course the officer was talking about refueling ships but it struck a note. The next morning Dolittle was at the library at the base, quite probably his first and last sortie to that landing strip. It took two hours to find what he wanted, information about air to air refueling. He read the document at least ten times before he handed it back to the librarian and left. It was exactly what he wanted to see. In 1932 two Army pilots had transferred fuel from one plane to another in flight using a length of hose trailed from the one plane. Refueling was possible. As he read the report he realized it would be more difficult with existing planes than the open biplanes of the thirties. The open cockpits made it easy to trail a hose from one plane to another and handle it. The closed aircraft made this method impossible. He spent the remainder of the day walking on the back of the base with one of the senior aviation mechanics. When he returned, he had some sketches.
His plan was so radical he was sure nobody would give it enough credibility to even try it, so he had to prove it feasible before he let anyone in the military hierarchy know about it. He knew there were those who would pounce on a new idea and destroy it. He vowed to not allow that to happen. He made use of his position in a training command to test his theory. His plan called for several modifications to two of their planes.
With the help of a couple of maintenance men, the modifications took less than a week. They had to design both the fuel hose to drag behind the tanker and the connector to accept the fuel hose. Every training flight that went up for a couple of days trailed several hose designs to determine how the end should be shaped to make it trail out and fly smoothly. An aeronautical engineer would have used a wind tunnel for this, Dolittle used what he had at hand, full size aircraft flying at the speed and altitude they intended to use for refueling. It was a luxury no engineer could have dreamed of in his wildest fantasy but then, Dolittle had no access to a wind tunnel.
The President's U-boat commission made their second report, they had studied the German U-boat bases and determined that there was no reliable way to cover the bases and pass back the information. They explored the concept of the Australian coast watchers that were still located in the islands of the South Pacific, repeated overflights, submarine surveillance and a host of others. All carried the risk of detection. The commission finally found two situations that could possibly be exploited.
There was one weakness in the German Navy, the high command demanded constant feedback from the ships at sea by radio, making detection possible. Unfortunately, the German Navy used a too many frequencies and on such a random time schedule that it was difficult to catch a transmission and even more difficult to get an accurate fix. The current equipment was not accurate enough to give a fix that was good enough to send out an attack. It seemed impossible to catch enough of the transmissions to make driving a U-boat a dangerous occupation. In addition, two stations must hear the same transmission and both must get a fix on the target. It seemed impossible but the President decided to pursue the concept by building more accurate equipment. It was actually an easy decision, there were no good alternatives. The problem was referred to a Halicrafters Radio to design a system that would make this monitoring possible within six months.
A second weakness of the U-boats was one of geography. The main U-boat bases were located so that the boats leaving these bases had to transit the North Sea or the English Channel to get to their stations. During the study, someone jokingly suggested they place a fence across these two outlets. Everyone in the room laughed. Over a period of several days this metamorphosed to a chain of listening points to watch for the passage of the submarines. If they could detect a sub crossing the line, they could know approximately where he was at a certain time. Someone suggested two undersea cables with microphones along their length, so that speed and course could be estimated. Nobody had any idea if the cables could be built or how much they would cost. RCA was given the task of determining if the cable could be built. They too were given six months to determine if feasible, and if so, design, produce and lay a pair of five mile cables off the New England coast near the Electric Boat works. The coming and going of the American submarines there would give a good test of the equipment.
The president looked at the report, for the price of this equipment, which may never work, he could purchase five destroyers, but they would not be enough. It was a throw of the dice, if it worked out, the U-boat menace would be reduced. If not, he had just sentenced some sailors to death.
Colonel Jimmy Dolittle was riding as copilot of a B-17 that was right now flying just below and behind another B-17, less than one hundred feet from it's tail. A piece of fuel hose with a basket like affair trailed from the tail turret of the leading plane. The pilot sitting next to Dolittle was trying to snag the basket on the end of the hose on a pipe they had installed near the cockpit of the B-17 he was flying. "Damn it Jack," he blurted out after the twelfth miss, "I thought you could fly this thing. I got it on the second try. If I can do it, it ain't that hard. What's your problem? Should I transfer you to a C-47? Maybe you'd be better hauling sled dog food to Alaska?"
Jack Rinehart didn't answer, he backed off a few feet and this time he hit the basket and it hooked to the pipe. They flew in formation for a few minutes and then disconnected. Both planes returned to the base. The flight was repeated twice in the afternoon and three times the following day. Six pilots, from very senior like Dolittle to a couple of very junior co-pilots like Jack had each made two successful connections. In every case to prove the operation, fluid was transferred from one plane to the other. In all but the last four, the fluid was water. In those, it was aviation gas.
Two days later four B-17's took off just after 0100 hours. Two of them each carried a crew of ten, four pilots, two navigators, a radioman, two gunners, and a bombardier. The planes had a full complement of guns and each had 5,000 pounds of practice bombs. The other two planes had been stripped of all but four guns and each with a full tank of fuel in its belly. The four planes began flying east together. Just after 1200 the two B-17's carrying the fuel transferred the spare fuel to the planes with the bombs and returned to the base. Two other fuel planes took off at 2100 and headed east to meet the bombers. At 1730 hours the planes with the bombs dropped them on the bombing range 4000 miles from their base and turned for home. At 0330 hours they met with the two tankers and topped of their tanks. The four planes landed after 1530. The two bombers had been in the air for nearly forty hours, had flown over 8000 miles and dropped 5,000 pounds of bombs each and on target. As Dolittle excitedly put it when he landed, "Imagine what we could do with the new B-17's. These were the old versions."
Had the bombers been the new versions of the B-17, the range could have easily been well over 10000 miles. With an additional relay of tankers, he could fly from Pearl to Japan and back. Without the rely, he could strike from Midway. The bomb load was pathetic, but they could fly to the homeland. He prepared his report and forwarded it to the commanding officer who passed it on to Washington. It took five months for anyone to notice it. In the interim a group of engineers studied the report for several weeks and found the concept was unworkable. After they released their unfavorable report they were shown the test flight results on the back of the last page of the report. Even so, the report was considered a curiosity and filed for later evaluation, there was a war on, there was no time for such tomfoolry.
The units sat on the test bench, they weren't pretty, wires were strung out all over the bench, they had the smell of hot tubes and electronics and the tubes were exposed but they were working. The unit could scan one third of the German naval radio bands, it would take three units with different coils and crystals to cover the German Naval bands used by the U-boats. With this unit hey could find a transmitter if it stayed on the air for more than twenty seconds. But there was a hitch in the equipment, it couldn't just be placed anywhere. The antenna farm for the unit was enormous, nearly a mile long and it must be installed away from any interference. There was only one place the unit would work well and cover the Atlantic, on the isolated coast of Iceland. There were a ton of diplomatic considerations, and they had to be resolved. Any other installation site was a bad second. This was presented to the President and the word came down, proceed with the construction of the units. When the contract was prepared, Hallicrafters' offered to build five of the installations for twenty percent more than the price of the two that were planned, hoping to recover some of the development costs. Somehow the order got signed with that modification and the work commenced. The diplomatic issues were resolved and the construction of the site began immediately, it would be ready by the time the first equipment was available in April.
Colonel Dolittle was summoned to the base commander's office. He was introduced to a Jack Fargo, a fighter pilot who had just returned from Europe. Bob Plank, one of the graduates of the bomber school was with him. He was surprised to see Bob, it was extremely unusual to ever see a graduate, let alone shortly after the class was stationed. They trained them and sent them off. Three days ago Jack was flying a P-47, escorting B-17's over Germany. He told of how they were forced to leave the bombers because of lack of fuel and could see the Me-109's wait until they left to attack. If they could just stay with the bombers a little longer, even a few minutes would help. He met a B-17 pilot in a pub that evening after a raid. They discussed the day's battle and how the Germans held off till the fighters were gone. The B-17 pilot asked why they didn't refuel the fighters over the channel, giving them additional range. Jack had looked at him like he was crazy.
"How would you do that?" Jack asked.
"With a bomber carrying gas," Bob replied.
"And I'll just get out on the wing, insert the hose and fill it," Jack retorted.
"No, you just hook up to the hose and they send the fuel over."
"And how do you get the hose connected?"
Bob explained the procedure as a theoretical item, without actually telling him that he had participated in tests. The participants had been told that the procedure was classified and couldn't be discussed with anyone who had not been cleared for it.
Finally Jack could find no more arguments. He looked at Bob and grinned.
"Damn. You aren't just BS'ing me. This isn't some wild idea you dreamed up. You actually did this."
Jack nodded.
"That CO, Dolittle, he must be one crazy bastard, to try to transfer gas in flight." At first Jack had thought this was a theory, some wild idea in the head of a tired bomber pilot. Now he saw it as something possible. He wondered why the brass hadn't jumped on the idea.
The word was out, now Bob continued to describe the procedure, "Out in Colorado, we did it with B-17's. Kept one in the air over 40 hours, with it we thought we could fly to Tokyo and bomb. Right now it looks to me like maybe it would be a better idea to keep fighters in the air longer."
"You did this? I mean you personally, didn't you?"
"Sure did. With Colonel Dolittle. I flew the one gas plane for the long flight. I was one of the junior pilots they had try to fly the plane being gassed. They claimed if I could do it, anyone could. Dolittle, he was one crazy man but he made things work."
When the evening ended Major Fargo went to the fighter commander's office. A half hour later they woke up the base commander. By 0800 the next morning orders were cut and before noon Jack and Bob were leaving for Colorado.
Dolittle heard what Jack was saying. They wanted to try fueling a fighter in flight to increase its range. If they refueled over the channel, they could replace the gas to warm up, take off and fly there. That could add another hundred miles or so. Another hundred miles of fighter protection might save a quarter of the planes that were being shot down. Bombing Tokyo wasn't as important right now as saving planes and crews. The colonel's dream of attacking Tokyo would be shelved for now. Without this exposure, however, Dolittle knew the refueling idea might spend the rest of the war in a file in Washington. Maybe this was the way to get them the authorization to make a Tokyo run, by the back door.
The next few days were spent making plans. They modified one plane and worked out techniques. It would be somewhat different for fighters to refuel, maybe even more difficult because the refueling port would have to be on the wing, away from the propeller, away from the pilot's eye. Dolittle flew several successful flights with the fighter. Finally all was ready for the test. A flight of P-47 pilots ready to leave for England was brought in, of the eight men, three were experienced pilots, the other five were green. Mid-air refueling had to work for all skill levels or its use would be seriously limited.
It took a week to get the planes modified and get things down with the experienced pilots. Everyone was beginning to think this was an almost impossible task. One of the older pilots had almost rammed a fuel plane. The older pilots were betting the new pilots would never be successful. Most of the newer pilots were scared. They flew, watched and worried, next week would be their turn.
The wind was blowing from the sea, cold, bitter and biting. Barry Arnold stood on the beach with ten other men, looking out to sea, watching a whale boat making its way toward shore. Six platoons of armed soldiers were further ashore for security. Nobody would be allowed near this beach. Further inshore other Soldiers were preparing a fence line with guard posts and barbed wire. Several Quonset huts had already been assembled on the hill above the beach. When the boat was as close as it could come without its occupants being dumped into the sea, they pulled abeam of the shore and lay to. A figure kneeled at the center of the boat and braced himself. Seconds later a rocket soared toward them trailing a line. The rocket landed about fifty yards to the north. They retrieved the line and made it fast to a reel of heavier line they brought with them. For now there was more chance the line would be parted by the motion of the boat than lost by being pulled to sea. The men in the boat pulled the heavier line to the boat and made it fast. Barry and his men would control the tension on the line as the men in the boat moved toward the large ship laying nearly a half mile offshore.
The whale boat moved off, the line was played out, and soon there was a line, albeit a delicate one between the ship and the shore. Now came the hard part. A rope was connected to the small line and it was pulled to shore, this was followed by a light cable and then a heavier cable, made of steel and over a half inch in diameter. The two cables were pulled ashore by a pair of D-6 CAT's. With this in place the men on the ship began playing out the three quarters of a mile of submarine cable, every fifty feet a float was inflated and placed under it, each time the tractor advanced and the line of floats approached the shore. Soon there were seventy floats and the cable was approaching the shore. The men were wet and cold, hands were barely able to handle the equipment but they pressed on.
They finally pulled the cable to land, and brought the end of it to one of the Quonset huts on about a quarter of a mile from the shore. The CAT's cut a shallow trench aside the cable and the men pushed it into the trench and CAT's covered it. By the time the cable was covered the men on the ship were nearly done deflating the floats, starting at the shore. As each was deflated the cable sank to the ocean floor. By the time the sun was setting the cable had been spliced to the equipment in the hut. A few tests were made and the signal was given to the ship to pull out. The signal was given through the cable, the ship would maintain radio silence during the remainder of the voyage. The decision had been made to lay fifty miles of cable on each test leg to better simulate the actual lays. By noon the following day the ship sealed and dropped the end of the cable into the Atlantic, then steamed back to a place twenty miles to the south.
By the time she was ready for the second cable, Barry Arnold and the men were again on the beach at another location to pull in the second cable. The first location was manned by the men who would test and operate it.
At 0700 Bob Plank took off in a fully loaded KC-17, the designation given to the unofficial modification of the B-17. A few minutes later Bill Rogers, a rookie pilot rolled down the runway in a P-47 with his gas tanks about half full. Both flew away from the field. When they were clear of the field area Bill located the KC-17, and pulled up under the tail of the tanker but about five hundred yards behind it. As he approached the turbulence was about half as bad as it had been described. Slowly he closed on the tail of the other plane. At about seventy five yards he could see the "tail gunner" through the bubble which once had a gun mounted in it. For the first time he realized the tanker crews were defenseless. They would be taking a flying gasoline tank into enemy territory without anything to defend themselves. Later he would realize that if these men lost their nerve and turned for home, fighter jocks like him would wind up in a German POW camp. It gave him a real respect for the men in those planes.
Satisfied that he had the feel of his plane, Bill eased up toward the fuel line and missed it on the first try. He backed off a few yards and connected on the second try. He took on some fuel, enough to see the wing tank gauge move, then disconnected.
When he as clear Bob keyed his mic, "Good show Blue four." He released the mic button and looked over at his co-pilot, "Damn good show, I'd say. Wouldn't you? He made that look easy." Jack nodded. "Would be great if we're sure it wasn't a fluke. You think we could get him to do it again." After taking on the fuel Bill had moved to a position off Bob's left wing.
"I doubt it, he's probably out there wetting his pants right now. We ask him to try again and he may hit the chute and go AWOL."
As if on queue, Bill keyed the mic, "Ninety nine leader, this is blue 4. Can we try one more shot at it while we're up here? That seemed to be almost too easy. Maybe I got lucky. Maybe we should be sure."
A big smile spread across Bob's face. It was as if the young fighter jock had read their minds. "Blue four, go ahead, take another drink." Maybe this kid was a cut above the others?
This time he did it on the first try. After taking on enough fuel to fill his wing tanks he disconnected and landed. The fuel was drained from his plane to prove he had in fact refueled in flight. As he was disconnecting another four fighter planes were climbing toward the B-17. They all heard the statement, "That seemed to be almost too easy." This would become the statement that would follow flight 99, they would be called the "2 Easy" squadron.
All of the four pilots were able to connect and take fuel twice. Only one pilot, John Cutler, needed more than two tries to make his first connection, he made it on the third. He had barely passed flight school and had nearly washed out of fighter training, he was easily the worst pilot in the group, probably one of the worst who could actually be loosely called a fighter pilot. Clearly the new pilots were going to be able to refuel.
Over the next few days they practiced more but with the same results. At the end of the week a second flight of fighters was sent in and after talking with the previous flight, they were able to learn the process in two days. Five bomber crews were pulled from training and their planes converted to refuel fighters. They practiced with the fighters until they were comfortable with the process. Over the course of the training they found that one tanker could easily service eight fighters.
Bob and five other bomber crews were flying their converted B-17's eastward, their destination, England. They were flying in a formation with sixteen fighters, P-47 Thunderbolts, an impressive show of force. The tankers had filled up before takeoff just after 0600. As they flew east they tanked the fighters each time they hit a low fuel status. They all landed in Dayton, Ohio, spent the night, refueled and flew on to St. Johns the next day. They would spend two nights there while their planes were serviced and made ready for the next leg of the flight. All had gone well, now they were about to embark on he most difficult part of the flight.
The final links between the two Quonset huts and the plotting room had now been operational for two weeks. The cable was functioning and the plotters were reporting ship movements. The men in the plotting room were never allowed to know what ships were to pass them, they made their reports and the known movements were compared to their reports by someone in Washington. Information was fed back to them to help them learn the sounds of the ships. The reports had been very accurate, the type, course, and speed of most ships were well within the desired accuracy. At the end of the second week the result of the test was given to the Navy, the president was advised and the decision was made to prepare for the deployment of the combat units. The Electric Boat site would be kept functional to train men for the combat sites. The watches were reduced to standard eight hour days until the new crews arrived for training, it was almost like working in a bank. For the listening detail, the war stopped every night at 1700.
Barry Arnold was one of the men who's job was not banker's hours. He and the Army detail with him had been split to guard the two sites. Their duty was around the clock.
Flight 99 and its fighters took off at first light. Their flight today would be nearly twice as long as the preceding days' and it would be over water. A navigation error would result in serious losses. If all went well the flight would end at bases in England. The KC-17's would land at a B-17 base and the fighters would land at a base that served the P-47's. By nightfall the very tired crews landed but their flights proved that air to air refueling was viable and that fighters could be ferried across the Atlantic in the air, making them available for combat sooner.
That night Bob met with the base commander to brief him on the flight's capabilities. The base commander had been informed of the tests but had not known the level of success. So secret had been the preparations that he had only learned of the arrival of the planes after they had taken off on the last leg. He was awed as Bob laid out the details. In the flights over Germany, each KC-17 could carry enough gas to refuel eight fighters to accompany the bombers and two to provide itself with fighter protection. With six such planes, as many as forty eight fighters could accompany the bombers and twelve fighters could be allotted to protect the tankers. With the forty eight fighters accompanying the B-17's the Me-109's would get a surprise. A DC-4 flew in that night with the parts to modify fifty other fighters. It took several days to modify the planes, train the fighter crews and prepare for the mission.
Jason Miller was one of the new people the Navy had selected for training for a combat assignment in the plotting room of the undersea cable site. He had picked up an unknown ship on the south cable about five minutes ago, its signal was increasing steadily. It was a new sound so he set up the recorder and began cutting a track. The recording equipment was a standard dictating machine, the sound was recorded on a plastic belt with a sharp stylus. Jason had no idea of what he was hearing, but this much he knew, it was diesel powered and moving along briskly about thirty three miles off shore. He could hear it well on the microphone thirty three, barely on thirty two and not at all on thirty four. He walked to the door and looked out, the area was clouded in fog, the visibility was less than a couple of hundred yards. When he came back the sound was gone. He turned up the gain and a different sound was there, he knew it well, it was a submarine running on batteries, and it was close to the cable. He switched to the two adjacent microphones again and the position was the same, just under thirty two miles. Apparently Electric Boat was testing a new submarine.
The submarine passed the line and soon Jason could no longer hear it. He looked at his watch, 1643, seventeen minutes till the end of his shift. He began to pull out the power down procedure, to have it ready at 1700. The men had planned a party for the evening at a pub, he did not want to be late.
At 1652 Jason was counting minutes and ready to begin turning off the equipment when his luck changed for the worse. His commanding officer came in with an entourage of visiting brass. They began to ask questions, obviously they had something to do with the project. He would be late for the party. With the heavy brass came a lone Naval Ensign, on crutches with a large cast on his leg. He began asking Jason questions, in fact his questions were the only ones that made any sense. He had apparently been on a Destroyer and worked with the sonar watch. He asked to hear something from the cable. Jason checked and there was nothing coming in on any of the microphones. The easiest recording to play was the one Jason had just cut, the unknown submarine. He pulled the stylus back to the start of the track and turned up the volume. The sound of the diesels came through the speaker. The Ensign turned and looked at the speaker, almost with disbelief. The diesels stopped and there was a sound of water rushing into tanks, obviously a diving submarine. The belt was quiet, then in response to Jason's turning up the volume when he returned from checking the weather, the sound of a submarine running submerged. The Ensign stood transfixed listening to it.
Without taking his gaze off the speaker he demanded, "Take it back to the end of the diesels, I want to hear the them and the dive." Jason complied, not knowing what was so interesting. By now everyone was watching the Ensign. He was clearly excited about what he had heard.
When the electric motors appeared his gaze finally moved from the speaker, "Gentlemen, what you have just heard is a German U-boat." He turned to Jason, "Where did you get that recording, is this some kind of joke?"
Jason retorted, "It can't be a U-boat, its right now 32 miles off shore and somewhere between the cables, most likely headed toward the Electric Boat yard. It has to be one of ours."
The Admiral grabbed a phone and started talking into it. He handed the phone to the listening post commander. "Give them the best location you have." Meanwhile the Ensign directed Jason and the other men to begin scanning the microphones, looking for the submarine. If it remained submerged it would not reach the other cable for nearly an hour and a half.
There were two more weak contacts at twenty seven and thirty six miles, these were ahead of the one that had caused the interest and there was another contact coming up on the south cable. They had at least four submarines in the area.
Jason repeated his comment, "They have to be ours."
The Ensign shook his head, "They're not. We have nothing in the area and the last sonar I heard was a U-boat going off diesel before I got this." He pointed to his leg.
Any ships in the area were told to head away except the four destroyers stationed at Electric Boat. The new Ward was the first to get away. She was headed toward the point where they expected the leading submarine to pass the north cable.
In the battle that ensued, the Ward sunk two of the German submarines, a new submarine in the yard that was about to go for sea trials was damaged by German torpedoes and the other two German submarines were cornered in shallow water and sunk by the Harder and the Wallace, one in a surface gun battle. The Wallace was badly damaged in the action but was able to make port.
Jason never got to the party, he spent the rest of the evening listening to the cables. At midnight he was relieved. No longer would this be treated as a soft post, it was a front line.
By the end of the week, the order for the listening units was increased to twenty and the amount of cable was raised from six hundred miles to two thousand. Posts would be established around many of the critical Atlantic ports and the Panama Canal.
The admiral looked out over the yard, smoke still rose from three damaged ships. Several German U-boats had come in just at dusk and the damage was serious. Three other bases were hit within minutes of the Norfolk attack, only one, the Electric Boat works escaped serious losses, somehow they had pinpointed the submarines and destroyers hit them before they could launch the full attack. At one Naval yard the U-boats had surfaced and shelled the shore positions before retiring. The results were not catastrophic but the effect on civilians in the area was devastating. The roads were still crowded with refugees.
The reports continued to come in each day. German submarines were hitting about three points on the coast each night, at varied times. There seemed to be no pattern to the raids. The question was what to do about them. There were two schools of thought, pull back everything to protect our coasts or continue to put pressure on the Germans. The final decision was borne of necessity, the sinking figures from the month of March were evidence that nothing could be pulled back but several B-17 groups which should have been headed to England were moved to the coast. They were unsuited for the job but they would augment the coastal defense forces. Most of their job would be flying recon missions. Their tankers were with them, they turned out to be very long range recon planes.
Mark Fuller's orders were explicit, he was to report to a base in Colorado for a training post. Carol was pregnant with their second child. He was surprised to learn that his assignment was teaching ground subjects to new pilots.
The escort fighters and tankers of Flight 99 had just returned to their station for the return flight refueling. Bob scanned the sky for the returning fighters. He longed to go further east to give the Bomber escorts more time but each mile increased the risk of encountering German fighters. If his tanker planes were shot down, all of the fighter pilots would also wind up in POW camps, victims of empty fuel tanks, but if he stayed too far west they would run out of fuel short of his planes. Already he was fifty miles east of the assigned location, as far as he dared to go. He wanted to give the fighters every mile they could get. He knew these men, they would stay with the bombers as long as possible and would be short on fuel-hence his being further east would increase their chance of having enough fuel to return. This was it, the first chance to see if the refueling would make a difference.
That morning on the outbound flight Bob had refueled the fighters, going as far as possible, actually going an extra seventy five miles to top them off as far east as possible. He and his escort then pulled back over the channel and landed for servicing. Now they were ready for the second refueling, without which the fighters most likely would not be able to return home. In anticipation of the refueling of the returning escort Bob had just finished topping off his own escort fighters even though they had burned less than a quarter of their fuel. He wanted them ready and able to return if they were attacked during the refueling of the returning fighters.
The radio came alive, "Flight ninety nine, this is six one leader, do you copy?"
"Six one leader, flight ninety nine leader, we copy," Bob responded. "Ninety nine leader, I have two fighters very short on fuel. The rest of us don't have much either. We had to drop off escort to make it here. We're about one hundred miles east of point R and these two probably aren't going to make it to point R with enough fuel to tank. Can you close on us?" "Six one leader, we're fifty miles east of point R, the radio just got a fix on you and we just turned straight toward you as fast as we can." "Roger ninety nine leader. Thanks. Six one flight, lean them out as much as possible, keep a lookout, the gas station is coming our way. Charlie and Walt, you're the shortest on fuel, you get the first shot. Make your connections good and quick."
Ten minutes later the two very thirsty fighters were being refueled, followed by the other four remaining from the original flight of eight called blue flight that Bob had refueled earlier that day. The fighters didn't worry about which tanker was theirs, they just refueled from the nearest one. Gas is gas when you're running on empty. Nobody mentioned the two missing fighters from blue flight but they were in everyone's mind.
Bob's interphone came alive. It was the radio man. "Skipper, B-17 flight just reported on forty five meters, they have lots of fighters coming in. Looks like an all-out attack."
Bob punched the radio button, "Sixty one leader, say how many are refueled."
Mike replied,
"Flight ninety nine leader, we have ten refueled, two of them were damaged and are headed home."
"Sixty one, B-17's report fighters coming in to attack. How soon can you resume escort?"
"At least ten minutes till we have twenty fighters. It's too hot to go in with less. They threw everything at us when they found out we weren't leaving." That explained the missing fighters.
Bob came on the radio. "Green flight, form up on Blue leader now. Blue leader, that'll give you twenty two." Green flight was the twelve fighters that had been escorting the tankers, Bob's protection. Bob's decision would leave the tankers somewhat exposed for a few minutes while other fighters refueled. He hoped it wouldn't be too long.
"Roger ninety nine leader, All Blue flight not refueled, you stay with flight 99 as escort. Red flight, wait as long as possible and refuel, then stay with flight ninety nine. Orange leader, you take Yellow. Join up with us when refueled. Flight 99, pull back about one hundred miles and wait, we may need you again when this is over. We're staying with the B-17's all the way home if we have to."
The Blue and Green flights were already on their way.
While the last two fighters were fueling two Me-110's threatened the tankers. They were set upon by the fighters flying protective cover and both were shot down. When the flights returned for the second return flight refueling seven of the fighters were missing and several more had been damaged. Bob did the numbers in his head, fifteen percent losses, one out of seven. Clearly there had been a serious air battle for the fighters to have losses of 15 percent. The damaged fighters were tanked first and four of the escorts were detached to take them home.
John Cutler was in Green flight and had answered the call to protect the bombers. Now he was back to try to refuel. As he pulled up under the tail of the tanker the "tail gunner" in the tanker shook his head. Cutler was one of the jokes of the outfit, he seemed to be an awful pilot. He had nearly crashed in several landings, in one case he was only ten feet off the ground when the tower ordered him to go around, he had not put down his landing gear. If it were not serious, it would have been funny. From appearances, Lt. Cutler was having a very bad day. His plane had holes everywhere, the engine was emitting some smoke, strips of metal streamed from the rudder. The boom handler watched as Cutler made a flawless connection, took on fuel and backed away. Apparently Cutler was as bad at air combat as he was at flying a fighter. Strangely enough, with this beat up fighter he had made his first perfect refueling. His usual performances were much less than acceptable, none of the tanker crews wanted him near their planes. During the refueling there were words of encouragement for Cutler from the other fighter pilots on the radio. This surprised Plank, Cutler had long been the but of many jokes and derision.
As they headed home Bob picked up a fleeting distress call. He recognized the radio call sign of one of the bomber groups, the one he left several weeks ago. He wondered how many of them had survived. How many of his friends were now dead or prisoners? The bombers must have been hard hit, had their losses been as bad as the fighters? Bob was quiet for the remainder of the flight. It had all been for nothing, the refueling was a failure.
To make maintenance easier, the tankers, designated KC-17's were based with the other B-17's. They could be serviced by the same maintenance people and use the same spare parts depots. The men of Flight 99 had been taunted by the other B-17 pilots during the training period. They considered the tanker pilots nothing more than airborne gas jockeys. Flight 99 listened on the radio as the returning bombers began to land. They counted them. Forty six had taken off this morning from this base and a like number from each of two others. The attacking force was about a hundred fifty planes. When the last plane was down they looked at each other in amazement. Forty five planes had landed. Only two of the returning planes had been given landing preference for wounded crews. When he landed, Bob went straight to the flight ops. He was certain he had made an error in his count.
"How many didn't make it back?" he asked the ops officer. "None. One plane landed at the coast to get a wounded crewman medical treatment. We had five wounded on the planes that landed here and three on the diverted plane. Eight wounded, no dead, and some minor damage to six planes. In the other flights we lost one to flack and an Me-110 got one over France while the fighters were refueling."
"What happened to the fighters? We counted seven missing at the second refueling?"
"They were in a real scrap. They got hit by over fifty planes at one time and thirty more a few minutes later. The fight on the way back was the bad one. They lost track of how many enemy fighters they engaged. Seventeen of them landed with empty guns. Eight pilots made ace today and two of them got six each. They shot down over fifty German planes, the ones that came back that we know about. We know the ones who got shot down got a few too. We'll not know how many for sure they got till we debrief the others."
Bob was amazed. He knew the improved fighter cover would reduce losses but this was incredible. The fighter losses were high, too high to continue, but if they actually got fifty fighters, those fifty wouldn't be there tomorrow to oppose the returning flights. This would make the next flights easier.
The commanding officer called him into his office. "Good day we had. Could have used a few more fighters over the target. They were badly outnumbered much of the time. More fighters would have increased our kills and reduced our losses. I checked, we have six more tankers coming in tonight. See if you can get any of them ready for day after tomorrow. I'd like to put up all of the fighters we have available."
"Aye, Aye, Sir,"
The commander went on, "Good decision you made today, committing Green flight. They were fresh, had full ammo loads, and could go a few minutes sooner. Just as the Blue and Green flights arrived, sixteen FW-190's showed up. They never got a good shot at the bombers. A few more minutes, we'd have had serious losses."
"Thank you sir,"
There were no more jokes in the mess about gas jockeys.
At the fighter base the planes began to land, many were damaged, some barely flyable and several were flown by wounded pilots. Lt. Cutler was given preference when he got to the base, he dropped the wheels and made the best landing he had ever made. As he rolled to a stop the fire and ambulance crews were waiting, they helped him from the plane and on a stretcher. His plane was so badly damaged that it was towed to the edge of the field to be used for spare parts. Someone joked that at least this time the enemy did the damage, not Cutler.
Lt. Cutler was ready to fly again. He was placed in Green flight to give him an easier day, the doctor had limited him to light duty as the requirement for his early return to service, the tanker escorts flew less hours than the bomber escorts and got a break during the mid-flight servicing. The combat time was generally less demanding. The need for pilots was so great no fit pilot could be spared.
When Green flight tanked for the first time that day, Lt. Cutler was the last to tank. When he pulled up to connect to the fuel hose the fueling operator on the tanker called Plank on the interphone. "Guess what that dumb Cutler did today, he took off in a plane that has seven Gerry flags stenciled on it. The Gerry's see that they'll blow him out of the sky thinking they are getting a real ace. Wonder who's plane that jerk took? That guy can't even find the right plane when it's on the runway." Plank had no idea what had happened, things were getting busy and they dropped the conversation for the remainder of the flight. Cutler and the rest of Green Flight joined the bombers again for the return and there was again a significant fight.
Several days later the bomber crews threw a party and invited the tanker and fighter pilots to join them as guests of honor. Plank was talking with a couple of fighter pilots who were telling him how good it was to see a tanker when they were short on fuel. They kept mentioning the exploits of a pilot they called "superace". Plank finally asked, "Who's superace?"
"You have to know about Cutler, don't you?"
"Sure do, what a klutz, you didn't have to nickname him superace to make him feel bad, did you? He has hard enough of a time flying the plane."
"We sure did name him that, but not for that reason, he shot down five Gerry's on the first day out. He flew straight into a bunch of them just following his wingman like he's supposed to do. On the first pass the wingman got shot down and he took them on his own. He really got shot up bad but he shot down five of them till help arrived and was going for the sixth one with only two guns firing. The other day he got two more."
Plank shook his head, Cutler was not the first real bad pilot to become an ace. Bob Johnson had nearly washed out of training, his gunnery score was well below passing, but he was now the top scoring ace in Europe with twenty three planes. When they tanked Cutler the next time there were nine flags on the nose of his plane. He wasn't the greatest pilot, but in the air he was a fighter. And the tanker pilots were happy to have him in the flight.
The air war over Europe took a new turn. With the fighters able to accompany the bombers further, and the reduction in the German fighter cover, the tankers were able to go further too. Several times they tanked planes over Germany. With these "deep" operations several tankers were put in the air over the channel as backups, at the first sign of trouble they were sent east to provide fuel if something happened to the primary tankers. Only two tankers were shot down during the operations. Experience showed that by having fighters alternate flying cover for tankers and protecting bombers, they were more effective. Often the Germans lost more fighters trying to knock out the tankers than the bombers. Some real air battles ensued near to the tankers.
Hallicrafters and a host of other suppliers were involved in the project and like any complex project, the April fifteen delivery date for the direction finding system had slipped twice. The site, the one thing they thought would be the last thing done was ready, the Quonset huts were assembled, the antenna towers erected, mess halls were in place and the men to operate and maintain the equipment were on site, but the listening post was still off-line. Most of the equipment was already in the racks but there were some obvious holes in the racks, some of the equipment had not arrived. One of the missing components was a frequency standard, needed to calibrate the equipment. Its special quartz crystals were made in Carlisle Pennsylvania, transported to St. Louis for assembly in a temperature controlled oven, then the oven was taken to Boston for final assembly in the oscillator. It was assembled and on the dock for shipment when the German U-boats raided the Boston harbor. The unit was destroyed. The manufacturers estimated the replacement unit would not be available for two months. Several other components were likewise not available. What the military procurement people had missed when they signed the increase in the quantity of the units was the note that the military would be responsible for ordering all equipment not assembled by Hallicrafters. One of these items was the Lock Frequency Standard. Only three were produced, all were in the same carton on the dock. There were no spares.
Bert Wallis of Standard Piezo at Carlisle Pennsylvania was surprised to see several men in uniform in the outer office. They were expecting no visitors. He walked out of his office to see what they wanted.
The ranking officer was a Full Colonel, he was accompanied by three captains and four lieutenants. They were from Ft. Indiantowne Gap, and several platoons of armed men were already deployed outside the building. The Colonel handed Bert a piece of paper, it declared that the plant was under military control and the Colonel had authority to commandeer any equipment and persons necessary to carry out his mission. Anyone who refused to carry out his orders would be arrested, he had authority to use deadly force to carry out his mission. It was simple, the Colonel would not leave the facility until they produced a half dozen of the critical crystals and they were on their way to the customer.
The Colonel asked for a list of the production steps, the names of who would be needed to perform them and any materials needed. Bert was ordered to expedite the function, under penalty of a charge of obstructing the war effort. The people involved in the production were informed that failure to come to work would result in their arrest.
Nobody thought the crystals could be made in the time allotted but they were finished in two days. The Colonel and one Captain personally followed the units through the plant, leaving them only twice to catch some sleep while the other two Captains guarded them. Everyone noticed that all of the officers wore side arms and the Colonel never snapped the holster. Bert had been told to start twelve units, the expected yield would be ten good units, the military would buy any or all of the units that passed inspection. The actual yield was twelve, there were no rejects.
Four of the completed crystals were given to each of the three captains in brief cases chained to their wrists. What Bert had not known was that each critical component of the frequency standard had been given the same intense consideration. Each of the men with the crystals were assigned three soldiers and they were sent to St. Louis by different routes.
Four completed Lock Frequency Standard units were ready for shipment to Iceland. Two were put on separate planes, to be flown there. When the first unit arrived it was installed. The first listening post was complete, it went on line at 0204 on May 3. It would take some time to calibrate the unit to make its information valuable. That calibration would be carried out by having ships at sea make short transmissions from known points and comparing the data with the estimates from the site. The listening posts were manned and contacts were reported. Until the contacts were verifiable, the data would not be passed to the British.
Bill Jarvis was at one of the twenty five listening posts in the center. A light flashed on the screen and the recorder started. He looked at the meters on the three receivers. He checked the recording needles on the meters and recorded the numbers. He then looked up at the three Cathode Ray Tubes mounted above the receivers. He switched the ranges on so the bar was on the screen as it scrolled. He recorded the three lengths and the range settings. He pressed a button that called the LT. He would take the numbers and they would work out a position using the strengths of the signals and one using the time differential between the receipt of signal on three antennas located in a precise row, a mile apart. The combination of the angles and the time differential would make up a set of triangles that would pinpoint the spot in the ocean that the transmitter occupied. This was the first contact since the unit came on line about twenty minutes earlier.
The new listening station in Iceland had reported six U-boat contacts in the last three hours. At first they thought the contacts were from the same boat, the contacts were in a circle a little over sixty miles in diameter, but the radio interpreters listened to the recordings, there were definitely five boats, most likely six, close together. What Bill Jarvis, the Lt., the radio interpreters and the plotters did not know, but the grim men in British Headquarters knew was the significance of the location of that group of submarines. A very large convoy of ships was even now approaching that location. Convoys kept radio silence so at any given time their location was an estimate based on "dead reaconing" information, when they left, their estimated speed and planned course. Given the uncertainty of the convoy's location and the possibility of error of U-boat's locations, the convoy and the U-boats would meet in the Atlantic within hours, in fact, it could be as soon as noon or as long as midnight. Unless something was done, six U-boats, nearly 150 torpedoes and six deck guns, were headed for that convoy. The convoy was headed for a disaster.
The men, ships and supplies in that convoy were priceless. There was only one thing to do, have it turn 70 degrees south till about 1600 and hope the U-boats were not already shadowing it. The U-boats would hopefully not know of the course change and would continue on course till sometime after that time, by then they would be too far north for an attack within the next twenty four hours. They would have a long run to the south to find the convoy. Maybe by then it could be too far to the east. One possibility existed for a respite for the convoy, an attack on the wolf pack by some force, but there were no ships within range. The convoy was over eighteen hundred miles from the English coast.
Everyone was turned out at 0430, the men were grumbling, they had flown the day before and everyone expected to have the day off. They were tired, flying a long high altitude mission was hard on the body, they needed at least one day of rest. The armors were given orders to load each of the planes with 40 - 100 pound bombs. They would be carrying a minimum of machine gun bullets and the waist and top gunners were being left behind. Many thought this might be a suicide mission, without the waist gunners, the bomber's defenses were definitely weakened. The maintenance men were told to load the planes with the maximum fuel, based on a bomb load of 4000 pounds, and the reduced personnel and ammunition. In this configuration a B-17 could fly a very long mission. The crews knew they were in for a really bad day.
The pilots were briefed, they would be flying east, looking for U-boats, hoping to find them on the surface. At least they would not be facing German fighters. The planes would be split into flights of 15 that would take off every hour starting at 0600, each accompanied by a British patrol plane. This would place the first of them in the area near the U-boats at just about 1500 hours. If the U-boats were sighted, they would attack, if not they would stay in the area as long as possible, then turn for home.
The briefing and the arming were completed, then the word came to hold the takeoffs. Nobody knew why yet, nor would they know. The reason could not be given to them without compromising the source of the intelligence. All they could be told was that they were being held on the ground for now. The crews were advised to get some sleep but stay with their aircraft.
The radioman came to the bridge of the Dorthy with the message. The captain read it and swore. Could the radioman have made a mistake? The radioman shook his head, he handed the captain two additional messages. The message had been sent three times to allow the radioman to confirm its contents. The Admiral knew it would be hard for the captain to comply.
The radioman looked at the captain, "Sir?" He could not frame a question, he could only look at the captain quizzically.
"Are you sure this message is authentic?"
"Yes, but why?"
"Son, I'm sure those guys back home know more than we do. Go ahead."
"Sir, could you sign the receipt of the message and note that you are ordering me to comply? For us to send a message, and to give away our position is nearly suicidal."
"Yes, son, I'll sign it, and I hope you are wrong." the captain replied and signed the order. "Leave one copy here and get on with it. Come back as soon as you're done." The radioman left the bridge, entered the radio room and turned on the high power transmitter. He tuned it to 7.376 megacycles and looked at the message he had been instructed to send. He began the message and sent it three times as requested. Each transmission took over three minutes.
The captain shook his head, the admiral had ordered him to turn south just after sending his message. Two escorts would be detached and continue along the convoy's course until just after sunset, then they too would turn south at high speed to rejoin the convoy. The captain signaled to the two designated ships by flashing light and they confirmed the message. He looked away as they confirmed, they may never see these ships or men again, they would most likely be in combat by nightfall and be grossly outnumbered. He hoped the admiral knew what he was doing, if not, a lot of good men were going to die for nothing and the convoy, marginally defended now, would be even more exposed. The convoy was notified to turn a 0600.
Bill Jarvis was about to go off duty when the message came in. He recorded the signal strengths and the time differentials. As he did the Lt. came in to pick them up, he knew the message was coming. That message confirmed the location of the convoy, but more important it gave what the engineers called a delta, the distance between two points. Right now the delta was over 140 miles and the change of course would hopefully increase the time it would take for the U-boats to catch the convoy till long after darkness. The British now knew accurately where the U-boats were because they knew how far they were from the convoy and in what direction. The message from the convoy had enabled them to more accurately pin-point the convoy and the U-boats.
Bill noticed one other thing about the second message, it was on 7.376 MC, the same frequency as the previous message. What he didn't know was that with uncalibrated equipment the best accuracy was had in finding the delta between two points.
Barry Davis had been flying in formation with the British patrol plane for nearly eight hours now. Just after 1600 hours they had been ordered off, to fly east, locate the patrol plane just east of his field and fly with him. They flew in a relatively tight formation until 2330, then the patrol pilot ordered them into a line abreast formation about a mile apart. It was the same formation Vic Weaver pioneered in the Pacific for heavy bombers searching for surface targets. The Brit took the middle of the line as they headed east. The sea was getting dark, the moon was at the quarter and they could see little on the surface.
At 0032 the British plane reported two radar contacts, about 20 miles ahead and about a mile apart, most likely submarines. The line of planes were pulled in, they would fly over the two submarines, half of the bombers would drop on the first target, the other half on the second. The formation was set up to have the first planes over both targets at the same time.
Twelve minutes later the bomb bays were empty and the bombers were turning toward home. Nobody knew of they had hit anything, but over three hundred bombs had been dropped on each target and there was an oil slick at each location. The patrol plane would remain in the area to look for these subs or any others that may be lurking here.
Six more formations were following them.
During the night B-17 bomber crews, untrained in sea battle rained over three thousand bombs on six targets in the ocean. The convoy was not attacked during the night and early the next morning the two detached escorts rejoined the convoy and it resumed its eastward course. It would arrive safely.
Although it was a victory, the B-17's could not be used this way, the cost of sinking the subs this way was too high, but they had proven that the locating equipment worked. Someone calculated the cost the ships and materials in the convoy, the price was higher than the cost of both the cables and the radio locators. The first engagement had paid for the development of both systems. But if it took this many bomber sorties to kill six German Submarines and there were nearly 400 in the Atlantic as they would win because the Allies did not have the resources to kill them all at that rate.
Barry Arnold and his men were working in dense fog near the north of the main island, pulling ashore another heavy cable. It was connected to the partially completed equipment, the ship stood offshore and headed east, toward Norway. Barry had seen nothing but the one ship, but there were at least fifteen ships in the screen that would protect the cable ship. Seven of them were below the waves, they were new submarines which were destined for the Pacific, but were making one cruise in the Atlantic before transiting the Panama Canal.
The Starfish was at periscope depth, running parallel to the cable layer, on batteries, about twenty five miles to the south. Another submarine was further away. They would maintain a screen for her, pulling back only to recharge their batteries. A third sub on their side of the convoy would replace the recharging boat. The trip east took nearly forty hours and placed them within fifty miles of the Norweigen coast. Four days later they began the second trip, laying a cable from the southern end of the island. Both trips were completed in fog, both without German intervention.
By the time the second cable was completed the equipment had arrived and was installed. The cable layer would now return to Baltimore to be reloaded, it would be a month until it returned with the other cables for the southern site. Jason Miller, now a CPO sat at the first console and started his first watch. For an hour both cables were relatively silent. Jason got up from his chair to stretch and get a cup of tea, a habit he had begun to form since he arrived at Shetland. As he returned to the chair he noticed the lights were indicating some sound on eighty eight south. He switched it to his headphones and was greeted by the now familiar sound of a diesel, not just a diesel to him, but a German U-boat diesel. He tuned in eighty seven, strength seven. He moved to eighty nine, strength four, the U-boat was most likely somewhat inside the eighty eight mile point. He looked at a chart, crossed strength points seven and four and read the distance, about three tenths of a mile, making the submarine's location eighty seven point seven. He reported the probable contact to the British Naval officer who served as their liaison.
At 2113 the signal peaked and started to fall off, the sub had just passed the cable. They now knew exactly where one German U-boat was located within a tenth of a mile. It was decided that they could not attack the German submarines at or near the cable without attracting too much attention so they would get a course and speed and attack the submarine later. Now they would wait for him to cross the other line, most likely in about an hour, to pinpoint his course and speed. The location was plotted on a large map on the wall. An estimated course and speed was attached, every ten minutes the plot was updated. The German submarine moved steadily across the map.
They acquired the signal on eighty three north and followed it till it peaked at 2227. Within a minute the plot on the map was adjusted, they had estimated 15 knots at 355 degrees, the actual was 15.3 knots at 351 degrees. The plot was extended to the edge of the map, with locations marked for every 30 minutes. The information was passed to the British Navy. The submarine was at two degrees ten minutes east, sixty one degrees 17 minutes north.
Captain Henderson was about to leave the bridge when the message was delivered. It gave the submarine's speed, location and course projections. He walked to the chart table and made some plots. At good speed they could intercept the submarine just after 0130 if he did not change course.
Four days ago Captain Henderson and his three destroyer squadron were escorting a convoy. When they dropped the convoy they expected to be given leave but instead they were ordered to refuel and provision and head north at best sustained speed. Since early this morning they had been at sea off the Shetlands, awaiting orders. Now they had a contact.
The captain spread his destroyers on a wide line abreast and headed toward the sub. At 0122 his lookout reported a contact dead ahead which disappeared almost as it was reported. The destroyers went to full speed to close, leading the submarine slightly. The lookout had gotten a location and an estimate of range, a plot of the point indicated it agreed with the projected location of the U-boat.
The U-324 managed to survive the engagement but only by turning toward home, badly damaged. She would be unable to sail for three weeks. The second engagement resulting from cable intelligence was not the rousing success of the first, but the Atlantic would have one less submarine for a time.
Jason heard the sub cross the cables on its return but nobody was able to get into position to attack. He considered this a defeat, the men on ships in the North Atlantic considered any U-boat that turned back a win.
Captain Donaldson crouched in a trench with his men and looked out through the mist that seemed to be a perpetual fixture on the island. He knew something was out there, and he knew it wasn't an American force. Through the mist he could hear engines but he couldn't see anything but fog. He had a force of a little more than two hundred men to defend the island. He called his men to the bunkers and sent off a message to Kiska reporting the movement. This message would be relayed to Juneau by Kiska, because of the aurora the radio on Attu was unable to reach Juneau much of the time. With the impending danger even men on sick call were activated and on duty.
Within an hour, the Captain and all of his force were dead and the Japanese held Attu. They took no prisoners, the wounded were bayoneted where they fell. The four hundred man force on Kiska was already under attack and would fall within four hours. The Japanese attack on the west coast had begun in a place nobody had expected on islands with names nobody but a few geographers would have recognized just days before. Within a day Japanese forces held the harbor at Anchorage and a good portion of the town. Juneau and Ketchikan were also in Japanese hands. By the end of the week aircraft were based at the captured airports and were flying cover for the invasion. There were too few defenders, and there had been insufficient warning. The American intelligence had been totally blind to the attack. The resistance had been much less than aggressive, the area was lightly defended because the American Army believed this area wouldn't tempt the Japanese to attack. The troops in all cases weren't well trained, equipped and supported.
Sergeant Ferman McCans, Third Army stationed in Juneau huddled with his squad and shivered, it was colder here than he had ever known in Pennsylvania. Three days ago Lieutenant Foster had been given five squads to establish a weather station and outpost about three hundred miles north of Juneau. They had moved out of town in trucks, but as the roads ended they had pulled out the dog sleds, offloaded the three CATs with snow shoes and cabs, hooked up the trailers to them and started off across the snow fields to the mountains. An advance party preceded them, dropped into the hostile area by air about a month before. Army pilots had been dropping supplies for weeks and that party was even now collecting the supplies at the site of the camp for assembly. Foster and his men were to move in, help assemble the remainder of the station and return, leaving only a small portion of their force there to operate the station. Much of the equipment they were transporting was delicate, it was not prudent to air drop it. Fuel and other supplies were being dropped as fast as possible. McCans helped set up the tent to protect them and the CAT from the weather during the night. That completed, they moved inside. The radio man had set up the antenna and was even now trying to make contact. After several fruitless attempts to contact Juneau they contacted the men at the new camp. The news was bleak. The Japanese were on American soil and the advance base had lost contact with Juneau several hours ago after learning it was under attack. The party was advised to use the radio as little as possible and move out as early as possible to join with the advance party.
Lt. Foster and his men arrived at the new camp site at just after 1000 hours and moved into the buildings that had been set up. With a little crowding the men could all be housed in the existing buildings while they assembled the additional structures. The men were all assigned to bring in air dropped supplies that were still laying on the ice, using the snow CATs sparingly to save fuel. In spite of repeated tries, they were still unable to contact Juneau.
Late in the day the men heard aircraft engines in the distance. The few machine guns were readied, men stood on guard. This could be the enemy coming. Radio contact was soon made with the planes. The fliers asked the men on the ground to smooth and mark an airfield. Soon the ten C-54's that had been supplying the base by air drops were on the ground along with a pair of P-47's and four single engine planes flown by bush pilots. Nine of the C-54's and the bush planes were jammed with supplies, the tenth had eighteen passengers, three of them women. These included the Juneau commander, Colonel Laird, the staff of the forces at Juneau and a half dozen aircraft mechanics. They had boarded the C-54's just before the Japanese overran the base and flown to a remote field. When the Japanese advanced on that field they took off and flew out after loading all of the supplies they could collect. Most of what they brought were stocks of food and fuel oil and a few medical supplies. Everything that was left behind was to be destroyed. Many of the other men at the base took supplies and tried to strike out into the white wilderness. Hopefully they could survive.
Using the radio at the camp they contacted U. S. bases in the states and after a short time orders came back. The men at the base would remain there to maintain a U. S. presence, Colonel Laird, the women and his staff would be flown out. The aircraft mechanics and the pilots were put to taking care of the C-54's and getting two of them ready to fly. Because of the extra passengers, the long distance and the rough runway they would use two planes to make the flight safer. They could take off lighter and still have fuel reserves to make the flight. Fluids were drained from six of the planes and used to fuel four planes. The remaining six were covered to protect them as much as possible. There was still enough fuel to fill the tanks of the P-47's and the bush planes. These would be useful for defense if the Japanese came. The runway was smoothed and prepared, the planes would take off the following day. All but two of the C-54 flight crews would fly as passengers, these would stay with the two remaining planes that had enough fuel to fly. If the Japanese threatened, they would fly out as many men as possible, the others would take the snow CATs and try to escape. The P-47 and bush pilots would stay with their planes for now.
They reviewed their supply situation, with a little luck and some relatively strict rationing the remaining force could survive for about a year. Most of the men thought the U. S. command would evacuate them soon. When the two C-54's left the next day the reality of the situation hit them, they might be here for a while. This idea was reinforced when they learned they had been given a code name of Base Icebox.
Massive Japanese forces were landed in Alaska and they began to enlarge the area they controlled. The Canadian Army moved forces west to protect its border, most of them were green troops that had just finished training. They had been destined for a posting in North Africa. Their training and equipment better suited that climate but they were the only reserves available. American Army forces were moved north to the Canadian border, just in case. Within days the battle was joined and the Canadian Army, sorely pressed, requested help from the American Army in defending its border. The American troops began to move north along with massive amounts of supplies that had previously been destined for Europe, their diversion sounded the death knoll to retaking France in the next year. It was apparent that containing the Japanese threat was the top priority, retaking Alaska right now was out of the question. Within a week the word came down from Washington, the movement of forces to Europe for the invasion of the continent was essentially ended. The axiom of Hitler first would need to be reevaluated. The Japanese threat to Canada and the American Mainland would have to be neutralized first.
It is a military axiom that aircraft and submarines cannot take and hold territory. Except on their own soil, American land forces were held at bay in the Pacific fronts, unable to meet the enemy because they could not be protected by the navy while being transported there. Even if they could get there, they couldn't remain because they couldn't depend on the navy for supplies. Aircraft could drop troops, submarines could land them, and both could supply them, but only if the force were to remain small. Clearly, the surface ships of the U. S. Navy must take command of the Pacific if the Japanese were to be driven back to their homeland. The Pacific fleet had grown to three carriers but the Navy was lax to commit them to battle, particularly when Japanese had significant surface and land forces in the area. This included all of the Pacific except the corridor to Midway. In addition, no American commander had been able to win a battle with Japanese forces on land or the surface of the ocean. Defeatist mentality held the American Military captive as much as their enemies.
With Japanese forces on the North American continent, an attack on Japanese territory could clearly not happen until this threat was removed but the worst was yet to come.
A celebration was planned for the afternoon, it was not to be. The peace of the morning was broken by the sound of approaching multi-engined aircraft with unsynchronized engines. In Australia, they called these noisy aircraft washing machine Charlie. Twenty seven Japanese bombers came in from the sea, dropped their loads and flew back out to sea. There was no opposition. Not one gun opposed them, not one fighter raised to defend. One hundred eighty seven people were dead and several hundred others were injured. The property damage was not really that great but the emotional impact on the country was monumental. The bombers were land based, it was clear that they were from the north. They had flown only 800 miles, and had a greater effective range. Clearly the northern corner of the country was open to attack. This threat would have to be neutralized.
Over the next few days fighter planes and pilots were moved north, into the area, the Canadian and American civilian authorities linked together to pass information to each other and the military when planes were spotted. Over a dozen military radar stations were set up to provide better warning. Air raid drills were instituted in plants and schools. All of this was necessary, but it took resources that would have otherwise gone to defeat Hitler. Clearly the Japanese had taken an action that would prolong the war.
There had been a fear that the Japanese would assault the base but as time passed without this happening most at the base wondered why. The reason was soon obvious, the Japanese felt that the weather and lack of supplies would kill them. Why should they waste the men in the hostile environment? And after some time the men at Base Icebox weren't really sure the Japanese weren't right. It was bad enough now, and this was summer!
The afternoon radio message brought some news, they should expect a supply drop on July 9, they should be ready to move the supplies. They were asked to provide a list of critical items, the lift had a little over 5000 pounds of extra space available. They were amazed at the amount that had been designated. They passed back the list of items that they needed and hoped. The last message before the drop notified them that four men would be dropped with the supplies. The commander was concerned about that news. This would mean four more mouths to feed. The four more men to house was not a problem, this would actually help because the men produced heat and they wouldn't have to open another living space for just four of them, but they would need more fuel oil to melt snow for water. Fuel oil was probably the most critical commodity but they were already looking like they would be short on everything. This kind of help they did not need.
They heard the engines, then saw forty five C-54's in a scattered formation, coming in from the east. Nobody expected a force of this size, everyone had expected a force of four to six planes. They overflew the base, then turned and made another pass. Parachutes billowed and the packages came down. The men began picking them up and moving them to the storage areas. Over half of the parcels contained either food or fuel. Several contained aviation gasoline. Others contained arms, ammunition, new radios, radio spare parts, medicine, clothing, batteries and spare parts for the machinery. Two small gasoline and two diesel generators were included. The six men were in the last plane to drop, they were brought to the commander.
This was a surprise, they had expected four men, now there were six. Four of the men were operatives, men who were skilled at working behind the enemy lines. The other two men were radio engineers.
The plan was simple, the four men would be flown by the bush planes to locations near Juneau. They would gather intelligence and report back, finally they would be picked up and returned to the camp. After the trip they would be flown out in one of the C-54's that had remained at Ice Box. The mechanics were put to readying the planes for the mission.
They learned that the radio engineers were there to stay. Their job was to gather intelligence and report it back to the military without being detected. They sorted through their things, found their parcels and began their work. The first thing they did was set up a transit and survey the camp buildings and make an accurate map of the camp. Measurements were made once, and then again, and then a third time. If the three measurements did not agree to the fraction of an inch, they were repeated. A frame with a pole on it was attached to the center of the roof of each building to allow it to be located exactly. The took two very long days, with the midnight sun they had light to work more hours than they could sustain in the cold. Several of the men were detailed to work with them, the work helped them deal with the boredom. When the survey was done the engineers retreated to an area that had been cleared out and set up for them in the end of one of the work huts. One side had two desks as a work area, the other side was cleared for equipment installation.
One of the parcels in the drop was half full of mail. Newspapers, magazines and books had been stuffed into all of the parcels as packing material. The mail was sorted and passed out to the men the next evening. The books and magazines were placed on shelves in the living huts. Some of them had been damaged in the drop, but they too were cared for. The person who had thought of this novel packing material would be blessed many times by the men in this bleak place, this would provide contact with home and it would help pass the many hours as they manned a vital and yet desolate post.
Lieutenant Markle had slipped into old clothing and made a quiet sweep of downtown Juneau moving carefully from one point of cover to the next. He did not contact anyone, in fact it is doubtful that anyone was aware he was there. He was picked up near a lake twenty five miles from the city three days later. One of the four men did not return. The bush pilot went back two days later to see if he was just late. He was never heard from again. It was supposed that he had been picked up by the Japanese and killed. The reports the other three men brought back were chilling, however they had been instructed to not tell the men in the camp about their recon. The Japanese military police were systematically killing the citizens of Juneau. The captured military had been killed first, only a few of those who were considered valuable were transported to Japan. Markle had escaped capture twice, a capture that would have been certain death.
The three men who infiltrated were flown out to the states the following day without having contact with the other men from the base. They had been briefed before the mission that what they learned must not be communicated to anyone at the base. They each wrote a report, made a handwritten copy, placed it in a sealed envelope which was given to the senior communications officer at the base. These reports were to be opened and transmitted personally by the communications officer of the base only if the men were unable to deliver their reports. When they had made their reports in person the communications officer would be notified by a code word to destroy the reports without opening them. He was sworn to secrecy on even the existence of the reports. There had been indications of the slaughter of civilians before the mission, now this was confirmed. The Army command had determined this information, if confirmed, was to be kept secret. Releasing this would only risk creating panic in the Pacific northwest. Many of the citizens expected the Japanese to appear any day. The presence of more soldiers to protect them seemed to have no effect.
Twenty seven B-17's took off in the darkness and headed west. Thirty five miles out to sea they headed north. By evening fifteen of them landed, they had bombed the Japanese airport at Juneau, but twelve of the planes wouldn't be returning. They'd become victims of Japanese fighters. A lesson learned in Europe had been learned again, at a terrible cost. Like Europe, a fortified area in Alaska couldn't be attacked without fighter escort. The Japanese had a firm hold in North America.
The next few days saw Japanese raids on several additional American and Canadian cities within a thousand miles of Juneau. Fortunately the Japanese didn't have planes with longer ranges. Fighters were diverted to cover the northern approaches and several KC-17 tankers were diverted to provide them with the ability to roam further and maintain more patrols. The Japanese had brought the war to the Americans. For the first time in nearly a century, foreign troops were occupying American soil and attacking Americans in their homes. The mood of the country had turned sour toward the war and the military and civilian leaders. Clearly something had to be done.
Some additional fighter and tanker planes were recalled from Europe and stationed in the northwest for protection. Several new flights of fighters were stationed there rather than being sent to Europe. The Japanese threat was clearly pulling forces into the area rather than allowing them to be deployed to support the strategic plan. With this increased defensive posture the Japanese bombing raids became sporadic but they were still a threat. They tied up resources that should be available for use elsewhere and the lack of warning made the job more difficult.
The engineers had been huddling together since they arrived. They worked fourteen hours a day, the men joked that the living spaces could be heated with the heat from their slide rules. They had shot sun sights several times to be sure of directions. They had men in the camp line up the poles on the top of the huts with the sun, an accurate time gave the exact compass direction of the line between them. None of the men had any idea what they were doing but they watched and supported them in their work.
Finally on the last day of July the engineers met with the base commander, the unit's radio men and the construction troops. They presented a drawing of what they would be building.
They would be constructing several large antennas. The first would be transmitting antenna, aimed south east and very directional. The idea was to allow a low power transmitter communicate with a ground station in Canada. That station would relay the information to the military by teletype on a phone line. The antenna would emit very little energy toward Juneau. The attempt was to keep the Japanese from realizing the base was actually helping the American military effort. The regular high-powered radio would continue to operate at times to convey the concept of normalcy.
The three other antennas would be pointed toward Juneau, three were pointed fifteen degrees east of Juneau and three were pointed fifteen degrees west of Juneau. Most of the equipment for the antenna construction had been dropped with the engineers, they would begin the construction with what they had available and "order" the missing items at a later time. Base Icebox would be a second listening station like the one in Iceland.
Morale at the base was as good as it had been since the early days of the time there. The men were busy and they were doing something that would hurt the Japanese. They had constructed the transmitting antenna and the Juneau receiving antennas and both were ready to use. While one of the engineers was working with a construction crew, the other engineer was working on the listening area in the hut. They constructed twenty listening areas, each a small desk area with a comfortable chair and a radio receiver on the desk. McCans helped set up the area, he had never seen so many radios.
Both of the engineers had been keeping lists of things they needed to finish the work. When the work was completed they met with the base CO. At the end of that meeting the men were called together. They would be getting another drop of supplies and 68 men in the next few days, the exact drop date depending on the weather. This would leave more men than the base could support for the winter months. All of the men who had originally built the base would be leaving, they were being relieved. They would have to clear another runway for the incoming men.
Again the sky was filled with C-54's. Sixty three of them dropped supplies and then two of them broke off and landed. The men deplaned and the planes were covered. Several days were spent getting the supplies collected and stored, a job that would have been difficult for the new men, not accustomed to the cold. The original men worked with them to get them accustomed to the climate and help them learn what they had learned the hard way. A second drop by forty six planes the following day added to the piles of supplies. These too were stored. Storing the fuel involved cutting trenches with the snowcat and placing the skids with the fuel in tanks in them. The trenches were separated enough to prevent a fire in one from spreading to the others. The drop included hoses and several portable pumps to move the fuel from the buried tanks directly to the tanks at the generators. With this done the original men of Base Icebox were loaded into the two aircraft and flown out. One of the engineers, Jon Peterman had worked with Pvt. McCans for most of his time at Icebox, in fact McCans had latched on to Jon and volunteered to work as many hours he worked. In the early days of the drawings and measurements it was sometimes just getting coffee and meals, carrying them to Jon and seeing that he had anything he needed, but McCans was ever there and watching. On the flight back McCans sat next to Jon. They made some small talk and then McCans asked if Jon would tell him if an idea he had was worth looking at. Jon nodded and McCans started.
"The power generators make a lot of heat, they have radiators and the heat gets blown out in the air, then we burn fuel oil to heat the crew areas and more fuel to melt snow for water. I asked the Lt. why we didn't put the radiators in the cabins, like heaters in cars, and he looked at me like I was nuts. You think it would work?"
Jon thought a couple of minutes, "Well, I don't know how much it would do, but any fuel we save means that much less to bring in."
"Yea, I checked the last lift, not counting the radios and the antennas, over half of the bundles were fuel oil and the second drop was the same. Saving just a little oil would help."
"Let me think about it, maybe we can get someone to figure out how much it will help. You know, you ought to go to school, you have a good head for numbers. I was watching you check some of my figuring. I got to watching, several times you got a different answer I found out I was wrong. It may have saved us some time and work. I didn't get a chance up there to really say thanks."
"We didn't have the money for me to go to school, I'm just a farm boy."
Jon nodded and the conversation turned to home.
It took only a few days to begin the radio watches. Men scanned the bands looking for Japanese radios, recorded the transmissions using teletypewriters to punch the messages into paper tapes and these were loaded into the transmitter. Nearly continuous transmissions were made with this information. The Dictaphone units which were used in Iceland were not available at the time, they would be installed as soon as possible. Included in the transmissions were signal strength comparisons and delay times from the three antennas that allowed the location of the transmitter to be estimated. Base Icebox settled down to monitor the Japanese radio traffic in the north Pacific.
Jack Miller was transferred from the Greyfish to the Growler while she was in port after her fifth patrol. When he returned from his first patrol on the Growler, he learned the Greyfish hadn't returned from her sixth patrol.
Forty seven men he had lived with were gone with her. He and about thirty others had been transferred to other boats after the sixth patrol.
The Batfish report on the patrol held the answer to what happened to the Greyfish. The Batfish and the Greyfish had been patrolling off southern Japan and were on the surface charging their batteries about twenty miles apart. A Japanese aircraft had dove on the Greyfish, dropped a single bomb and she went down. The aircraft hadn't been spotted until it was too late. The Batfish saw the plane, dove and wasn't spotted. Later she surfaced and picked up seven survivors. Three submarines had been sunk in this area without a trace in recent weeks. Apparently the Japanese aircraft were able to accurately track the boats and sink them. Over the next month, two more boats were lost in the same area. Jack Miller was transferred from the Growler after two more patrols. His new station was on the crew of the Harrisburg, a new submarine. She was a beauty but was so different from any of the boats he had seen before. Her hull was entirely different. The Growler was obviously a submarine but it had a hull much like a surface ship. This isn't surprising to anyone who knows submarines, before the Harrisburg, the name submarine wasn't accurate, the boats were really just submersible. They spent most of their time on the surface, submerging only for protection and stealth. The Harrisburg's shape was more rounded than the Growler, in fact it was shaped more like a whale than a boat. Like the Growler, it had four diesels, however they produced nearly half again the power of the ones on the previous boats and the electric motors were almost twice as powerful and over ten percent more efficient. The battery compartments were much larger and had the latest in battery design. Jack arrived after the boat was launched, in fact just before her fitting out was completed. It was wartime, her sea trials would take only two weeks. The very name Harrisburg for a submarine signaled one of the differences between her and her predecessors. She was nearly half the size of a cruiser and packed a punch nearly as great. Her underwater radius and speed while on batteries was nearly twice the previous boats because of her shape and improved equipment. In addition, unlike her predecessors, she could come to periscope depth, raise a telescoping tube and run her diesels to recharge her batteries or drive the boat. In this mode she could travel faster under water than the Growler could on the surface. The only penalty for this underwater speed was less stability and speed on the surface. The innovation that allowed her to run her diesels under water was a Dutch invention, one that the Dutch inventor had not been able to sell to his military during the pre-war years.
The Harrisburg had several pieces of electronic equipment including a magnetron radar that could be run while she was at periscope depth. In addition, the air intake had radio antennas that allowed her to receive messages and monitor enemy radio traffic and radar while underwater. As Jack put it, "She could not only run, she could also hide and watch while under water." In a trial run the Harrisburg stayed underwater for a week. Three weeks later they transited the Panama Canal and were bound for Pearl.
The report was issued to only a very few members of the government. It was a study of the war effort and its cost. It also projected V-E and V-J day as being in mid-1950. It assumed that the USSR were able to stay in the war and continue to keep a large German force contained. If the USSR were to be defeated, the dates were set in 1955. Nobody who read the report felt the nation could continue the war effort that long. Clearly something must be done to bring the war to a speedy close.
Sgt. Ferman McCans returned from his sixty day leave, which all of the men who had been at Icebox were given after their return. Upon return he was promoted to sergeant, effective while he was in Alaska and received his back pay. Now he was assigned to a training command. This would be a soft posting for as long as it lasted. He hoped the war might be over before the army decided to send him elsewhere. He had been a wartime soldier for nearly two years and had not sighted a gun or been fired at. It was a good feeling, he hoped it would last.
Anthony Roskov strained as he looked into the morning mist. There were engines running out there and Anthony recognized them, they were Panzer Mark IV's, how many he couldn't tell, but there were at least a dozen. He looked at his men, there were only twenty seven to hold a front over a hundred meters wide. Anthony knew the gravity of the situation, there were no reserves, if the Panzers broke through they were free to advance to the city and beyond. In the last attack they had exhausted the ammunition for the anti-tank gun, now he had only one weapon that would even pose a threat to the Panzers, a battered American bazooka. He counted the rounds for it, there were only eleven. His men had killed at least twenty German tanks with it, thirty two of them had died in the process, but three times that many Germans had died too. Each time the gunner was killed the bazooka was picked up by another man.
He checked the positions of his men, and looked out into the mist again. He saw the first tank approaching. His men waited, they had not retreated from the positions they had held before, instead they had moved a hundred meters toward the Germans, they would surprise them, they would engage the enemy early.
He saw the first round fly from the bazooka, a Panzer flamed. The machine gunners on the remaining tanks began sweeping the area. A second round bounced off a Panzer without causing any damage. The German tanks easily swept by the small force, pushing on to the east, toward Moscow. They were followed by another column, this time trucks loaded with German soldiers. Anthony and his men regrouped and were able to harass the men who followed on foot. Within a half hour only Anthony and two men were left alive. They counted cartridges, between them there were only a total of ten. They had two bazooka rounds but the bazooka had been crushed by a Panzer. They no longer were an effective fighting force. They slipped quietly toward the east, toward home.
Hans Steiger counted, one, two, three, four, five, he was fifth in line. When they pushed off he was tenth, five of the lead tanks had been knocked off. He watched the lead tank run over a Russian soldier and an American bazooka. He shook his head, this was all they had and they took out five Panzers. The Fuehrer had said Germans were a super race, that the Russians were inferior. Now a dozen or so of them had taken out five Panzer Mark IV's, with a weapon that had an effective range of only a little over fifty yards. What could they be in for as they advanced to the east?
Sgt. McCans had just returned from the rifle range. He was planning an evening in town. As he walked back to the barracks which his platoon occupied he saw another Sergeant coming out.
"Sgt. McCans?"
"Yes."
"I have orders for you." He handed McCans the paper he was carrying.
"Thank you." McCans responded and started to walk away. "Excuse me Sergeant, I was told to see you read those orders in my presence, then I am to have you pack your things, turn over your files to me and accompany me to the Colonel's office. Please see the orders."
McCans read the orders that simply said he was to pack to leave, not discuss his leaving with anyone but the sergeant, turn over his files on the men to the sergeant, and report to the Colonel's office within the hour with his things.
When he arrived there fifty minutes later he recognized three other men standing there, men he had served with at Icebox. Without seeing their orders and without much thinking he realized they were going back. Within fifteen minutes four other men from Icebox showed up, they too were packed and ready to go. Any doubt about where they were headed ended.
The men were escorted to the PX, they were given a chit for a hundred and fifty dollars and an opportunity to buy anything they wanted but they were not allowed to talk to anyone. A command van was waiting outside the PX, they were put in it and the van pulled out. The van was already occupied by several other people, two of which were the engineers from Base Icebox. Jon looked up at McCans when he entered the van and motioned for him to sit next to him. He pointed to the Sergeant's stripes and gave McCans a thumbs up. McCans smiled and said, "Thanks." Jon had been the only person in the army he could remember who had ever told him he had done a good job.
The American High command learned that the Japanese intercepted radio high band traffic in the northern area. They knew Base Icebox was communicating on low band radio but the level of traffic on a higher band a search plane picked up had them concerned. Base Icebox had gone off the air immediately to prevent detection but the information it provided was critically needed. The engineers laid it out simply, they were going to be doing what many thought impossible, they were going to take in twelve snow cats and four regular Cats with trenchers across the frozen ground and lay two one hundred pair telephone cables across 700 miles of frozen ground and snow. The cables must be separated by about a quarter of a mile to prevent them both from being cut at the same time. Each would have repeaters every four miles, and every hundred miles there would be two small manned stations with generators to power the repeaters. McCans learned he would be in charge of station 4, the one in the middle, over 350 miles from both Icebox and the nearest Canadian Civilization. It was not out in the middle of nowhere, but it was next to it. In the snow the cables and repeaters would have to be covered to protect them. The lines were even now being run from the nearest large city by the Canadians. The briefing continued during the trip as they headed north. They crossed into Canada near Detroit and continued into western Canada. There they met a train that left Detroit several days ago carrying their equipment and the additional men of the force. The men from Icebox would be the core, the leaders, the others were relatively new at working in the cold.
Hans Steiger looked out through the periscope. They had been attacked by civilians carrying bottles of petrol. They would light a wick on the bottle and smash it on the tank. Generally the man would be shot before he could reach safety. Sometimes the tank would flame. If it didn't, there would be another man, another bottle behind the one who had just died. There seemed to be an endless stream of them. He remembered the stories from school of how the communists had defeated the Czarist forces with human waves. He saw another bottle flare, the man carrying it ran toward his tank and smashed it. The tank flamed, Hans and his crew bailed out with their rifles and retreated behind the other tanks in the line. Several times they repulsed the attacks against them. Finally the tanks started to retreat from the square, to an area nearby that could be better defended. They would hold there until they were reinforced. The Russian government had collapsed, its remnants were retreating to the east. For several weeks the Germans advanced easily with little Russian Army opposition, but then the citizens fell upon them. The occupation of the Russian capital could easily be more expensive than the conquest of Stalingrad. Nearly two divisions died there.
The ready room was full, everyone was wondering what was being laid on. This was unusual, the last major raid was just two days ago, it was unlikely that they would be going again soon. The Colonel came to the front with his staff, the men snapped to attention, then were seated on command. "The Soviet Government is collapsing. There are a significant number of Americans and friendly foreign nationals who are even now being moved to Murmansk to be picked up by a convoy that will dock the day after tomorrow. We are being called upon to provide fighter cover and air support for the convoy. They could be under attack during their return from Murmansk and they will be carrying a significant number of civilians. We must do everything to prevent a wholesale slaughter. Major, Show them the plan." The Major stepped up and the map was uncovered. "For the next week we'll be flying every plane we can get off the ground. The limitation on this mission will be the number of tankers. These will have priority in every phase of the operation. They'll be flying in relays to provide fuel for bombers and fighters. Some of you bomber pilots will be spelling the tanker pilots so get as much sack time as possible, you might be called upon to fly at any time. If you have to fly a tanker, you will be pared with a tanker pilot."
"The fighters will be kept over the convoy, usually there will be only six to eight, but there will be a presence. We will be keeping twenty five bombers in a pattern near the convoy, if they're attacked by sea, the bombers will attack the enemy, then return. Two other sets of twenty five bombers will be kept orbiting one third and two thirds of the way to the convoy with a few fighters to protect each group. They'll be one and a quarter and two and one half hours from the convoy. If there's a determined sea attack, the orbiting bombers will be sent in. Other bombers will be scrambled to take the place of the two formations. We'll have two dozen tankers arriving from the states tomorrow to support this operation. We start flying on the twenty first." The briefing continued with the details of the operation.
In the last twelve days they had laid wire for over 350 miles and were well into the snow areas. One of the snow cats that carried cable moved ahead and reeled out the cable, when the three mile reel was empty the splice crew set up their tent over the end of it while the snow cat operators maneuvered another reel on the play out. While he was doing this, they made the one half of the splice, when the new cable was ready they set to the second half. Usually they were done before the trencher caught up. The trenchers never stopped unless there was a serious problem. The men slept in the back of the moving snow cats when they were off duty. Servicing and fueling of the equipment was carried on while they were stopped to splice a cable or every twelve hours if they did not have a stop for any other reason. The second trencher in each team was used to clear in front and cover the cable behind them where needed.
Jon was supervising the southern cable, McCans was the head of the service platoon. They joked about their job being warmer than the northern cable that was just about one quarter of a mile north of them. The two had been so busy they had hardly exchanged a half dozen words other than that necessary to see the job continued. Generally when one of them had his meal or sleep time, the other was working. Due to a problem with one of the repeaters Jon was eating late this morning when McCans jumped onto and entered the moving Cat. "Hi. You OK?"
"Cold, otherwise OK."
"Any problems?"
"Nothing now, get your food and some sleep, they promised to call us if anything cropped up."
"Good. You do any thinking about what I said on the plane?"
"You mean about school, yes."
"Good, let me tell you about your idea, to heat the cabins, one of our company engineers looked at that and improved on it. We have the equipment with us, you're going to get to help to install it."
"How does it work?"
"We put a second radiator inside the cabin, with hoses to the generator, just like you suggested but that's where the engineer did some additional figuring. The generators make more than twice the heat needed for the living spaces so he decided to use that too. There's another radiator he put in the base of the fresh water melter. They built a special valve that will put the heat into the cabin, but if there's excess it goes to the melter. If they don't use all of the heat and the water starts to get too hot, the valve changes and some of the water is circulated through the regular radiator. They even cut off the fan on the generator to save fuel if the wind keeps the radiator cool enough. The guy who designed it congratulated me on the idea, he thought it was mine, when I told him it was an army sergeant he told me to stay with you and listen to you. We put through a patent request with your name and mine on it, if it patents and sells, you get sixty percent, I get twenty and my company gets twenty. Sorry about that but I couldn't have them patent it for you unless we took forty percent."
"What do you mean patent it?"
"We applied for a patent for an idea, your idea, with some modifications, if there's a lot of use for this, you and I both get rich. You don't mind?"
"Mind? If you hadn't listened, there would have been nothing, they don't listen to privates here."
"I have something else for you when we get this settled down, for now, let's get some sleep."
Five of the snow Cats were empty by the time they got to Station 4. They were stocked with enough fuel and provisions to return to civilization, all of the other supplies and equipment were placed in the cats that would be going on. These five cats began making trips with fuel and supplies to stock the outpost stations while the other Cats continued to lay cable.
Daniel Ryan looked out from the bridge of the destroyer Pyle as they approached the destination. They had been notified they would be docking as planned but the stay would be short. They would be offloading supplies they wouldn't need for the return trip, then they would take on the American, British, Dutch and French nationals in the city. They might be having as many as five hundred people to evacuate.
The radio message came yesterday, it had been explicit, take off all friendly foreign nationals, with preference given to Americans and Brits. The other nationals were listed in the order of preference. During the unloading they were to keep supplies they would need for the return trip.
Dick Miller watched the instruments as the four engines warmed up. He was sitting in a KC-17 full of fuel, ready to roll down the runway. Three days ago he was in Colorado. They were gassed up and had been flying maximum hours since. Now he was getting ready to fly off-with a long flight facing him. His mission was to fly east with thirty nine other tankers and six fighters as escorts. He and five other tankers would supply the fuel for the fighters until they had only enough fuel to return home, then they would turn back alone. After some rest he would again fly off on another similar mission.
His bunkmate, George Walters was in line just behind him. George would be the second leg of the relay, he would supply the fighters with fuel for the remainder of the trip. The other tankers would be used to keep a group of bombers and their fighter cover in the air in case they were needed to attack German Naval forces. Mark Fuller was in the right seat of the third tanker in line. Everyone in the training program who could fly a plane was there. It was awkward flying with his artificial leg, but he knew it was necessary.
One of the fighters in the air over the North Sea was John Cutler, only now he was flying as the leader of a formation of eight fighters. He had matured into a fighter, a pilot and a leader. Cutler and his flight had been over the convoy area for more than six hours, the relief flight was due to arrive in about ten minutes. Cutler and his flight would head for home and some much needed rest as soon as they were safely on station. Their time over the convoy had been quiet, they had been vectored out several times but had encountered no German Aircraft.
Jake Devers, a new pilot who had just arrived from the states was in near terror. He was hundreds of miles over water, killing cold water it was, and he was not sure he could tank again to get the fuel he needed to get home. He had nearly crashed his plane on takeoff and things had gotten worse during the flight, he nearly rammed his leader about a half hour ago. One mistake like that and he and the leader were both dead. What if he rammed the tanker, all of the flight might be lost.
Jake pulled up under the tanker and proceeded to miss the hose several times. Finally Cutler came on the radio. "Green 8, are you having control problems?"
Everyone in the flight knew there were no control problems except in the head of the pilot.
"Negative green leader," came the response.
Before there could be any other messages the radio came alive with the message, "Green leader, this is Blue leader, we're under attack by twenty, that's two oh ME 109's. We could use some help here." The calm voice on the radio in no way matched the tension in the P-51.
"Green flight, vector 250 degrees, now." It was Cutler, he had determined the direction of the threat during the message. With the end of his transmission his plane leapt ahead and he turned followed by the remainder of the flight. Green flight was less than ten minutes out, headed toward them, with Blue closing at full throttle they would eat up the distance in less than three minutes. There was danger of head on crashes of friendly aircraft.
Cutler keyed the mic again. "Blue leader, give angels."
"Blue leader, angels sixteen."
"Blue flight climb to angels eighteen." Cutler had made a collision almost impossible. With that done he cleared his own flight, "Blue flight, confirm guns armed and ready."
The responses came back, "Blue one, Roger," and down the line. The last came on, "B-b-lue eight, Roger on the guns, fuel at thirty five minutes," Blue eight had not been able to tank. There was no time to have him tank now, the battle had been engaged.
"Blue eight, stay with formation till fuel status at ten, repeat ten minutes, then break and tank. You have priority to tank."
"Roger Blue leader."
Several of the flight almost keyed up and protested, with Jake's refueling performance there was no possibility he would return to the to the tanker and get fuel in ten minutes. But they saw not alternative and had to trust the leader. After all, why should others die for one clutz in the group.
Jake saw the Germans before anyone else, he called out, "Eight ME109's four o'clock low."
As they turned to attack the 109's pulled up to make a head on pass.
As the sixteen fighters closed both sides opened fire. Cutler and his wingman took out three, they fell away before the fighters passed. Blue four and one of the Germans met, the result was two burning fireballs. Blue seven and eight each got one but the pilot of blue seven took a 30mm round in his shoulder. As the remaining seven planes of Blue flight pulled up the two German fighters turned south with one of them smoking.
Blue seven came on, "Blue seven here, I'm hit in the shoulder, can't control the bleeding, I'm going back to the ships to bail out."
"Roger Blue seven, go back, Blue eight, go with him and tank, then wait with the tankers for further instructions."
Jake saw Blue seven bail out and saw he was near to one of the destroyers. With two minutes of fuel left Jake pulled up under the tanker's wing and refueled on the first try.
Just as he was pulling away the tanker pilot reported two German fighters at seven o'clock. Jake turned and made a head on pass, reversed course and turned to come up on the 109's tail. They were so interested in pursuing the tanker that they didn't see Blue eight till one fighter was in flames, before the other pilot could react the second was smoking.
Jake turned and came back on the tanker's port wing.
The air was alive with chatter, Blue and Green flights were mixing it up with nearly twice their number and were winning, but not without losses.
A pair of German planes, this time Stuka dive bombers droned in, Jake was vectored out and within five minutes they were burning blobs on the water. Jake turned back to the tanker. He checked his plane, he was down to twenty percent of his ammunition and the outboard port gun was jammed and no longer firing. He could not continue to fight for long.
He was again vectored out on a contact, it was a damaged FW 190, he dispatched it, but his ammunition was now down to ten percent and he had burned enormous amounts of fuel, he would have to tank before returning to England. He pulled up and took on a full tank, then broke off.
Several minutes later Blue and Green flights came in to tank, five planes remained of Green, four planes of Blue. Contact was made with England, when the first contact with the enemy was made Yellow flight that was stationed on the north coast was flown off. It was now on the way at best speed. Blue and Green flights stayed till Yellow arrived and then turned toward home. They met three tankers and refueled on the way. Ten very tired pilots arrived home, one more was on the ship, the other five were dead. But of the twenty eight German fighters they met, only three survived. In addition to Jake Devers, three other pilots made ace but only Jake Devers had no previous kills. By the time they arrived home the report on the Blue Seven Pilot arrived at the base. He was alive, the wound was not serious, but he would not have been able to fly back.
The men were fed and sent to sleep, they may have to take off eight hours from now, at best they would get twelve hours off.
Cutler came to the room Devers lived in. "Your're moving to Blue three on the next flight. Keep up the good work." Outside the maintenance personnel were painting six German flags on the nose of his plane.
The forces were all on the ground for the first time in a week. The convoy was in British held waters and relatively safe. The ships would make port by nightfall. The fighters had taken out seventy five German planes at the loss of only ten of their own, two of these were lost to mechanical problems. Six of the bombers went down, one to mechanical failure, three to fighters and two to enemy gunfire. The bombers had sunk four destroyers, two submarines, two cruisers and badly damaged another cruiser. No surface ship got within gun range of the rescue convoy and only one submarine got close enough to attack, it was damaged by a depth charge attack and it too retired. Three tankers were lost to mechanical problems, none were lost to enemy actions. Few of the lost crew members were rescued, a person died quickly in the North Atlantic.
With the convoy making landfall, the tanker crews were given three days to rest before they were headed back to the states. Mark Fuller was with them. The conquest of the continent was made just more difficult by the fall of the USSR and their leaving the war. The Germans would be tied up subduing the Russian people but their crack assault troops and aircraft were freed for deployment elsewhere.
The connection of the phone cable was the first order of business and base Icebox went back on line. With the phone lines they were able to do more surveillance than they had ever done with the radio link. The trenchers were used to cover the huts to make them less visible in case the Japanese flew over. Everything that was not white was covered, from the air the base became a part of the white landscape. With the phone lines the radio links went off the air.
Jon, McCans and the other mechanics began the modifications to the heating systems, within a day they had the radiators in place and the cabins were being heated by the generators. The oil heaters were turned off, they would only be lit if the generators were stopped. The melters were installed the following day and the burners heating the melters were turned to low and then turned off. In spite of this, the amount of water available increased. Base Icebox would become an easier watch to stand. The improved units would be used on each of the cable stations.
By Thanksgiving the German Air Force no longer was a serious threat to the strategic bombers. The fighters still made raids but they were limited to hit and run attacks which never had the effectiveness of the massive ones they made before the tankers. The flying filling station had changed the face of the war. Allied planes could go wherever they wished over the continent in relative safety. A loss of one percent of the aircraft on a flight became reason for concern. Only the flack guns posed any real threat to the bombers. Allied bombing was reducing the supplies of ammunition so even these guns were becoming less effective. Unfortunately the German industry had dispersed and much of the critical portions been moved under ground. The German military was badly hurt but it still had to be beaten on the ground and there were no forces to accomplish that. Aircraft could make an area untenable, it couldn't hold ground.
Bob Plank was handed new orders. He had been promoted and was being transferred back to Colorado with his crew. As usual with the military, there was no explanation, even his CO had no idea why Bob was being transferred. He wasn't scheduled for rotation for two months. Four of the six original tanker crews were transferred with him. The other crew would remain. Charlie Miller, its pilot was promoted to leader of flight 99.
Colonel Doolittle called the aircraft crews into the ready room. When all were seated he uncovered a picture on the board. It was a B-17, but it didn't look like the B-17 they were flying. The nose looked different, the wings were thinner and the engine nacelles were more streamlined. He began, "Tomorrow Boeing will deliver twenty four of these to us. There'll be two types. Eight will be fitted as bombers and sixteen as tankers. We'll train with them until we're proficient, then we'll be assigned to Midway. We'll be the first American forces to fly over the islands of Japan since the war began. For the time being, we'll not bomb, we'll be doing photo recon work."
"Why can't we drop bombs?"
"We desperately need to know what's happening in the islands and there's no other way to obtain that information. To carry bombs would jeopardize our primary mission. We will some day get a chance to bomb, but not now."
"Why twenty four aircraft, I see only five crews?"
"Eighteen of the crews will be from trainees in the next class. The final crew is mine. They will be here by the end of the week." The men looked at each other, they had expected to be in a crack unit, with experienced men, not guys who were even now trainees. "The photo planes will carry six men, three pilots, two navigators, and one radio operator. Both of the navigators will have radio training and all of the crew will be trained in gunnery, the planes cannot overfly Japan without being armed. Since the flights are so long, the extra pilot will be needed. Because of the long over water flights, and because frequently each plane will be flying alone, two navigators would be used to double check positions. We will have to be very accurate in our navigation if the material we collect is to be of any value, not to mention finding the tankers and the island on the way home. The navigators will be trained to handle the cameras and the guns, however in your own crews, I would recommend you all learn every job. If someone is unable to function we could write off a whole flight. That's a long trip to make for nothing."
"Now, let's look at what we're getting to take us there. The engines on this plane are twenty percent lighter and produce forty percent more horsepower on only five percent more fuel. With the changes in wing design, they produce cruising speed with about 30 percent less fuel an hour than the current engines. The shape of the plane alone would have raised the top speed by over one hundred knots with the old engines, that would be over 390 knots. The new engines tack on just over forty more knots on the top end. These babies will do over four hundred twenty knots, and they can get to well over twenty eight thousand feet without straining a bit. We hit thirty two thousand in an earlier model and these should do better. Sure the fighters can get to us, but they had better be really good.
The guns are 20 MM, and are remote controlled. They don't fire as fast as the old 50's, but they have longer range and when you hit a plane, it has a real punch. The idea is to hit the fighters before they get close enough to hit us. Any questions?"
"Who are going to be the tanker crews and the photo crews?" one of the pilots asked.
"Bob and I are looking at the folders now, tomorrow morning, we'll post the crew assignments. If someone doesn't work out, we'll move them to the other group till we get the strongest crews possible. There are two exceptions, Bob is tanker leader and I'll be photo leader. Unless one of us really blows it, that's where we'll stay."
The next six weeks were filled with flying, classes and more flying. The navigators learned cameras and radios. The radio men practiced with the cameras and some even learned navigation. They all practiced on the gunnery range. Air to air refueling was perfected. By the end of the six weeks they could fly a mission without any three of the six crew members on each plane except the pilots. On most crews the navigators learned to handle the flight controls enough to spell the pilots. Finally they were ready for the first trip to Japan.
The Harrisburg was again in Japanese waters. Three times on this patrol they used their underwater speed to perform an end around to make a second attack on a convoy that would have easily gotten away from the older boats. They were depth charged once, but they were able to use their speed to evade the two destroyers. Several times they galloped away after an attack, came to periscope depth, recharged the batteries, ventilated the boat and went back to attack. Any other boat would have had to slip away slowly and would have had little chance of making a second attack.
Her torpedoes gone, the Harrisburg returned to Midway to reprovision. She would do this one more time before she returned to Pearl. While in Pearl at the end of this patrol she received two new devices, one a radio in the 450 megacycle range, the 2/3 meter band. The Japanese had nothing to receive that band so the US Navy could use it ship to ship and ship to air without any risk. It could only be used line of sight, so the range was limited but it allowed ships to meet and conference. Even if they had the facility to receive it, the chances of an enemy picking it up were nil. The second item allowed two submerged subs to communicate in Morse code or voice using modulated sound above the audible range, at about forty five kilocycles. The equipment was fickle, the voice quality was bad and the range limited to five miles for voice and just under ten miles for code but it was the first real underwater communications available.
The president met at the White House with General Marshall and Admiral Nimitz. The mood of the meeting was foul. The American people were demanding direct and immediate action against the Japanese homeland. The war had become unpopular, there was dissent on all sides. The president could no longer count on his own party to support his policies. With the casualties from the bombing in the northwest, the Japanese on the move in Canada, and the lack of offensive action, all that was seen was defeat. Even the president sometimes wondered if it would be best to sue for peace. Some wished to have our government approach the Japanese and determine what terms could be negotiated to make a speedy end to the war. Those who would advocate peace would concede the South Pacific to the Japanese. Others demanded immediate attack, take the war to the home islands. Most people in either faction would support the other action, all were opposed to doing nothing, which is how the American people perceived the current situation. Clearly there must be some action before the election in November if FDR were to be reelected. The discussion was heated but before the men left one thing was clear, the President demanded that they find some way to strike the Japanese at home. The war must be brought to the Japanese and the home islands must be the target. Both men left wondering what could be done. Marshall was aware of the effort to conduct flights over the Japanese islands but knew the bomb loads they could carry would be pathetic. The only effective use of these planes would be recon. Later in the day he and Chester met to discuss the problem. Nimitz was made aware of the impending recon flights. They would be able to select targets, if they could just find a way to hit the Japanese. They parted with no solution.
The battle situation was bad in the northwest, to take off some of the pressure, the carriers Hornet and the new bases in Alaska. Intelligence collected by the men of Base Icebox was essential to this effort. This raid was seen as essential to reduce the pressure on the ground troops in Canada and to send a message to the people at home that the U. S. Navy was not totally impotent. Politics had begun to dictate Navy policy, generally a bad military situation. Just before dawn the carriers launched the planes which would scout ahead of the carriers, looking for Japanese targets. The early scouts, torpedo bombers carrying an extra gas tank in the bomb bay instead of a torpedo, had found nothing. Just after 1500 one of the long range scouts reported a fleet including three Japanese carriers at about 450 miles to the southwest, placing it about 800 miles off the American West Coast. The enemy had slipped past them and were now behind them and moving into a position to attack. Its course would have it off the coast the following morning, in range to attack several key northwestern cities. The report was the third one this year of Japanese carriers in this area. All of the previous ones had been false. Even though, the report was passed on and the flight crews and planes were prepared for battle. The attack on Japanese forces in Alaska would have to wait. The Fleet turned to the southwest to meet the Japanese fleet. They would be in position to attack near dawn the following day, possibly from a direction the Japanese would not expect to pose a threat. The range was too long to launch at the time and this wouldn't change enough before nightfall to launch an attack. A second scouting group was launched to provide additional cover. Along with two older submarines the Denver, a new submarine of the Harrisburg class had been diverted north to attack Japanese shipping off the Canadian coast and then move north toward Juneau in an attempt to take pressure off the land forces in Canada. Because of good dispersal efforts by the Japanese, the loss of a good portion of the aircraft and lack of good intelligence, the heavy bomber raid had been mostly ineffective. The battles weren't going well for the Americans and Canadians with the Japanese front advancing a few miles each week. Few outside the military knew how far the Japanese had advanced or that most military leaders were concerned that a significant breakout by their forces could carry as far as American soil. Clearly this must be prevented and anything that could be done to blunt this thrust must be done. On the Denver's next radio listening time she was given the carrier sighting report and ordered to attack the fleet. The two older subs would follow but it was doubtful they could reach the Japanese fleet, they were too far away and too slow.
Sam Donley had just dropped on his bunk for a nap. About an hour ago he had issued an order to any off duty men to get some sack time and now he was setting a good example. In the next few days he expected to be busy and needed to catch up on his rest. They would be in the western Alaskan waters day after tomorrow and would be hunting in a target-rich environment where every ship could just about be presumed to be a target. The only U. S. Navy vessels in the area were the carrier force to his east. He was just beginning to doze when a rap came on his door. "Cap'tin," came the voice through the fog along with a knocking on the door.
Sam sat up and responded, "Com'in."
He opened his eyes and looked up in the face of his chief radioman, Walter alias "sparks" Newberry.
"Dammit, Sparks, this had better be important. I was just trying to get a few winks. I'll need them in the next few days. I'll tell you, if it isn't something really important you're going to be the replacement for one of the torpedoes in the forward tubes and I'm personally going to fire it." "Sorry, Cap'tin, you need to see this right away, this message," He handed it to the captain. "I think we all got as much sleep as we're going to get for a few days."
Sam whistled as he read the message, "The Japs are moving our way, looks like they're planning to hit the coast tomorrow, that's the Navy's guess. We'd better see where we are and when we can get to them. If we can catch them while they're busy with an attack, maybe we could bag one of those flattops, take some pressure off everyone."
"Cap'tin, ah, you know, I checked the position on the way back to wake you, we're about two hundred miles from them, possibly less since they're headed toward our course. You think we can get them before they launch the planes? Some of the boys have families around Seattle."
Sam nodded, "We're sure going to try to get them." He pulled on his hat as he straightened up from the bunk. "Let's get this thing pointed right straight at them." Sparks smiled as they walked to the control room. Within five minutes the Denver had changed course a few degrees to make the shortest intercept. With the periscope as high as possible they could see further ahead. Sam then went on the interphone and notified the men on the boat of what they were doing. They should see the Japanese fleet in about three hours.
Just after 1930 the periscope lookout called out, "masts dead ahead." Sam continued at periscope depth running on diesels. In about an hour the diesels were stopped for a few minutes and they listened for the Japanese fleet. It was there, right where they expected it. They ran for fifteen minutes on diesels, then secured the diesels and proceeded toward the enemy on batteries.
In the next two hours the Denver fired over half of its torpedoes and endured over fifty depth charges. Finally she was able to free herself from the enemy and pull away for a respite. The torpedo room crews were exhausted. Although she was a new model of submarine, the two thousand pound torpedoes were still loaded into the tubes like they were on the pre-war Greyfish, with pulleys and manual effort. A submarine could fire the torpedoes in the tubes with little effort, the first reload came from torpedoes on racks just behind the inner doors of the tubes and these could be winched forward into the tubes. Later reloads had to be transported further from other racks in the torpedo room. This took more time and wore out crews. From a safe distance Sam could see that one of the carriers was stopped, burning and listing through the fog that settled just after the attack began. A second carrier was damaged along with several of the escorts but all were still under way. He was saddened as he realized that two carriers were still headed toward the coast. He had failed to stop the enemy fleet. If he could not stop them, tomorrow they would be bombing the coast. The Denver must make another attempt to stop them.
After the first engagement the Denver reloaded, made some repairs and tried an end a round at maximum speed. Before daybreak they resumed silent running and were hopefully just ahead of the Japanese fleet. They waited, finally they spotted two carriers, the damaged one was still smoking but now making nearly 27 knots. It had planes spotted on the deck. The damage they had done would make no impact on the outcome of the battle unless they were able to make another attack. They had damaged the carrier but had failed to disable her or even pull her teeth. She was apparently still capable of flight operations.
Sam watched as they neared, then set up firing solutions and prepared for his attack. He allocated four of the six forward torpedoes to the first carrier and two to the second. They were fired and the crews immediately began reloading. The two of the four aft torpedoes were targeted and fired at the second carrier. The remaining two torpedoes were kept in the tubes for defense.
One of the screening destroyers saw the torpedo tracks and headed toward the Denver. Sam went deep and turned to port to avoid the destroyer. In the minutes that followed, the destroyer was able to accurately locate the Denver and place several depth charges near to the submarine. Sam was aware that the boat was badly hurt but he still was within range and still had torpedoes to fire. Although he heard torpedoes exploding he was unable to determine whether they had hit their targets or learn of the extent of the damage. He came to periscope depth, took aim at the destroyer and fired two torpedoes at close range. Sam and his crew were now fighting for their own lives. Both torpedoes hit and the destroyer went dead in the water. She was down by the bow and sinking. Sam turned his attention to the carriers but as he was preparing to fire another destroyer threatened. He fired two torpedoes that had just been loaded but the destroyer dodged them. He fired two more while she was turning back toward him. They hit amidships and the destroyer broke into two pieces.
This time two destroyers were dispatched to eliminate the menace. The first depth charge run was close, there was a lot of damage to the boat. Sam wisely went deep, went to silent running and waited. Sam could no longer run or fight, he could only hide to save his crew and boat. It took three hours but finally the area was clear of screws. He came to the surface and cleared the air in the boat.
The Denver was so badly damaged she could not make enough speed to ever hope to catch the Japanese carriers. Two of her diesels were unserviceable, one of her three battery rooms had flooded and was full of chlorine. Sam radioed his position and the battle result and began a painful return to Pearl. He had failed to stop the Japanese fleet. The two conventional submarines in the area were dispatched to serve as an escort.
An SBD from the Hornet had again reported sighting the Japanese fleet, but this time they were sure it was the real thing. The contact with the Denver had confirmed the existence and the composition of the fleet. Raymond Spraunce walked the deck rubbing his hand through his hair. Today he would commit the fleet to battle, the first time this had been done since 1941 and the outcome would be crucial. If the Japanese were able to brush him aside and make a successful attack the coast, the country would certainly clamor for peace. The war had been long and successes had been few. Hitler was no longer advancing on any front but the continent was firmly in his hands, from Gibraltar to east of Moscow and from Norway to Greece. Although we had decimated his airforce, he still held France, some of North Africa, the USSR and the low countries. With the Japanese holding the northern portion of Australia and advancing south on the western coast of Canada, little could be spared to liberate Europe. We desperately needed a success. Spraunce knew little of air battles, he had been transferred from the surface escort to the carriers to replace Halsey who had been relieved several days ago when his appendix burst. During the night Spraunce met on the deck with each of the air officers, trying to learn how to fight with the air weapon. He had seen its effectiveness first hand at the First Battle of Pearl, he commanded the Cruiser screen for the Battleships, his own cruiser Astoria was sunk. If the Japanese could use it that effectively, he was sure that with the help of these young men, he could do the same. His time with them had convinced him they were ready and able to meet the Japanese and win. He was also sure he must give them the ability to fight that battle with the best advantage he could arrange.
At 1005 the first planes went down the decks. Twenty fighters remained in the air around the carriers to protect them as the others flew off to attack the fleet. Spraunce was shooting the whole bankroll on this raid. His planes were flying out without having enough fuel to return unless he continued to steam almost directly at the enemy fleet. One of the young air officers who had been at Pearl had mentioned to him that they must hit the Japanese first, not allow them to attack first.
The SBD's sighted the Japanese carriers at 1122. Both were obviously damaged but forging on. Their decks were loaded with planes. The SBD's went down in steep dives. Bombs thudded on the decks of the carriers and within minutes both were in flames. The other planes diverted to the cruisers and destroyers that were accompanying the carriers. More bombs hit but the ships came on. The heavy ships were headed for the American carriers. Spraunce was informed and the carriers turned away from the enemy at flank speed as soon as the last plane was recovered. The Japanese cruisers must not be able to come within gun range of the carriers. The air attacks continued until late in the evening when the last Japanese ship slipped beneath the waves. Only two cruisers and four destroyers which had stayed behind with the third carrier escaped, the carrier slipped beneath the waves at about 2200 and the remainder of the force turned toward home. The last of the Pearl Harbor attack carriers had been sunk. Not a single bomb or shell hit the coast. Raymond Spraunce, a man who many thought knew little of aircraft tactics had led a force that had beaten the Japanese in their own element. The man who had lost all of his cruiser screen in the first battle of the war would become one of the heroes of the war. When the battle was over he confided in his exec, "I'm glad we won today, I'd have hated to be known as the Admiral that fought two battles from a lifeboat." He was alluding to his time spent in an Astoria lifeboat at the first battle of Pearl.
Later Sam Donley and the crew of the Denver would be awarded medals for their part in the action. Only when they arrived at Pearl did they realize they had seriously damaged one carrier and damaged both of the remaining ones-setting the stage for the victory that was won by Spraunce. In the heat of the battle and the fog they had been unable to accurately determine the extent of their success. Truly they had saved the west coast.
The victory in the Pacific was significant, but the president's mood was no better than at the previous meeting. They must find a way to punish the Japanese mainland, just defending our coast wasn't the answer. Marshall and Nimitz left the office and by evening a joint Army Navy committee was set up to study the problem. Mush Morton, one of the bright stars in the submarine command was in Washington, on his way to take command of a new Harrisburg class boat that was even now being completed at Electric Boat. The boat had originally been assigned to another skipper but he had developed pneumonia and was in no condition to handle it. Mush was selected to replace him. One of his Annapolis classmates, Jack Smith invited him over for a drink while he was waiting for his orders. Jack had been on the California at Pearl and was now declared unfit for sea duty. He had lost his right arm to infection from injuries in the battle and was now assigned to a desk post in Washington. Jack confided that he was part of a committee that was looking for a way to hit the home islands. Mush laughed, "I did that last month."
"You did what?"
"Don't you guys read the action reports? Why do I bother to write them? Maybe I should write in the next one that I shelled Washington, would that get your attention, or maybe I should drop by and fire a few rounds? I hit a Jap town with about 75 rounds of five inch in my last patrol."
"How, why?"
"We were short on torpedoes, found a coastal tanker with no escort and surfaced to sink him with the deck gun. Just as we set him on fire a coastal battery opened up, and fired on their own ship. We didn't want him to get credit for the sinking so we opened up on the battery and the town to silence it You should have seen the fires we started, must have hit some petrol. We silenced the battery and left. Damn, if that deck gun wasn't so hard to fire we'd have beat them up good. I could have stayed another hour and shelled the place, nobody came by to bother me but we just couldn't keep the gun going. You have to man handle the ammo up through the hatch, it's a real pain. We fired about 75 rounds and when it was over the whole gun crew was beat, along with everyone else I could muster for ammunition duty. I pulled the cooks, half of the torpedo room and the half of the engine room to help carry it up. I even had officers handling ammunition. Seventy five rounds, that's nearly four tons of ammunition they brought up through that little hatch. I finally quit firing because the shells weren't coming up fast enough to keep the gun going. I couldn't justify sitting there unless I was doing something. It's a shame someone doesn't build a real deck gun for a sub. I'll tell you what I'd like to see, give me one of those 5 inch rocket launchers, they throw thirty six at a time, I stick up my nose, light them off, then I could go off somewhere, hide and reload and come back and hit them again."
The next morning Jack checked on the five inch rockets. The standard model had a range of eight miles, more than the deck gun, but too short for anything but shore bombardment, but they really hit hard. Each rocket threw a thirty pound charge. These would be effective on all but hardened targets. Three launchers would fit on the deck, a hundred of these rockets scattered out would really rip up a town. The design was over fifteen years old, he wondered if they could be improved. He checked the design and procurement files and found that a longer range version-a ten inch rocket had been tested but only a limited production of two thousand units had been authorized. Only a little over a hundred and fifty of the test models had been loaded with propellant and explosives, these had all been test fired. This left over eighteen hundred of the rocket bodies which were stored in a warehouse in Mechanicsburg PA. along with ten of the launchers. As he read the information he found the order had called for one launcher and two hundred rockets, with a possibility of the larger procurement, but somehow the order was written wrong, the manufacturer made the full run, and the government paid for them without realizing the mistake. Since the order authorized the production, it authorized the payment. They were worth too much to write off without high command approval and procurement had stored them, hoping they could be used or lost before some auditor found them and asked questions. When Jack called to ask about them, the procurement officer in charge got defensive. He thought Jack was investigating the purchase. When Jack explained that he wanted them, the procurement officer warmed up. Even if they just test fired them he and his people would be off the hook. Ready for firing, the ten incher was a 640 pound rocket, carrying a 250 pound charge for twenty one miles. Jack multiplied it out. A load of one hundred rockets was 64,000 pounds and the explosive on the target was about 25,000 pounds. This was more than twenty refueled B-17 could carry to Japan. He checked the deck space of a Harrisburg class boat and the footprint of the launcher. Three could fit on the forward deck. That would be thirty four tons of rockets, twelve and a half tons of explosives, and rockets spread the damage better than gunfire.
It took the remainder of the day to get together some experts and a few more days to work out the details. By displacement and space, a Harrisburg class submarine could carry enough rockets for five firings, with the initial firing loaded in port. It would take at least a day to reload and be ready for a second firing. The actual firing would take less than ten minutes. The sub would surface, hydraulically open the launchers, find the target, aim the rockets and fire them. The launchers would close and the sub could submerge. The plan was submitted and rejected, the existing Harrisburg class boats could not be spared for long enough to modify them. An alternative plan was prepared to modify several of a new class of boat, the first of which were now under construction. The plan was approved.
The B-17's and tankers took off just before dawn on a flight that would last into the next day. When it was over, the were tens of thousands of pictures to study. The first photo recon mission was an extensive photo scan of the eastern Japanese cities. It was completed without any losses. The film was fantastic. Even though they only covered a small portion of the islands, there was much that could be determined from them. The submarine command was given pictures of harbors and bays, many full of shipping. They now had a new perspective on shipping lanes and concentrations that went beyond the top of a periscope. Within forty eight hours after the flight, the submarines had hit seven major areas because of the photos. Boats were being assigned to other areas in hopes they could arrive in time to find healthy pickings. More than half did. It was much more than the most optimistic planners had expected. The submarines weren't just out there hunting, for a change there were more confirmed targets than assets to hit them. A second photo mission was set for ten days later.
The luck that held for the first mission failed for the second one before the planes actually took off. Since they had no spare tanker, a failure of one early in the mission would simply mean a photo plane would have to turn back before the refueling point and return to base. In this case, one of the tankers had an engine failure on startup and was pulled from the line. A return tanker took its place. The failed unit would be able to replace the return tanker since the engine repair would take no more than three hours. The flight left and the time came for the return tankers to take off. The sick bird still was not ready to fly, an additional problem had cropped up and it would keep the tanker on the ground for several more hours. Bob and his crew were inbound, about a half hour out. He was notified and after a quick conference with his navigators and the inbound flight he ordered the remaining seven planes off. They would delay takeoff for fifteen minutes, fly west, meet the incoming flight and six tankers would refuel the six planes with the least fuel. The delay would reduce the tanker's time in the air, leaving more fuel for the photo planes, but with some increased risk to the photo planes before refueling. The tanker with the most remaining fuel would split it between the two remaining planes. Bob and another tanker of the inbound group with the most fuel on board went to nearly full throttle to reduce the time to base.
When they arrived they were serviced and headed out, again at the fastest possible speed. They would provide the fuel for the other two planes. The two tankers would burn more fuel at their speed but there would be enough fuel for all of them.
The evening ended with all eight photo planes safely on the ground and two very tired crews. At one point in the flight, one of photo planes was down to twelve minutes of fuel, an uncomfortable margin. Before the next flight four planes were added to the force to provide an in-flight spare on each refueling and two extra planes on the ground in ready status. They would be sure not to repeat the error. Within two weeks two additional crews were added to the tanker fleet as spares. One of these would fly a spare tanker on each leg.
The photos brought back were even more valuable when matched with the previous ones, they were able to identify ships and determine routes and where shipping could be found between ports. The flights over Japan would continue at the rate of about one every other week. The photo planes made one bombing raid on a key aircraft plant and the damage was substantial, but it didn't justify the expenditure on all but key targets. They could carry only a minimum bomb load and only two thirds of the planes could be used because two outbound tankers were needed to provide enough fuel to get each bomber to the target because of the weight. In addition, the planes were being stressed by the heavy loads, wearing them out and making failures more likely.
The group made occasional recon flights over other areas which would have been too distant without the technique including some other South Pacific islands. Several of these flights involved double tanking in each direction but these were only done in extreme cases.
By the time the Harrisburg headed back to Midway two more of her sister ships, Fargo and Detroit, had sailed into the Pacific and the Fargo was already hunting shipping in the Sea of Japan. The Harrisburg returned to port to make a quick reload, effect some needed repairs and return to the waters of the Japanese islands. On this trip she would only be on station five days before she had to again return to the Midway to reload. She had fired all but one of her torpedoes. The twenty seven fish had sunk seventeen ships. They fired the last three fish at one tanker. Two hit, one missed in front of the ship. It hit a destroyer on the other side of the tanker and it sank too.
She had been lucky to escape after the action. She was defenseless without torpedoes. The devastation wrought by these new submarines had brought on action by the Japanese. Their plight was the same as that of the British in the Atlantic, the submarines were their primary enemy had must be dealt with quickly and at all cost. They must not be allowed free access to the Sea of Japan. Just before the Harrisburg's third patrol they formed two new hunting squadrons of twelve destroyers and three cruisers each. They were ordered to find and kill this new menace. The Harrisburg managed to slip away from one of these groups after its last attack on the convoy. Captain Henderson reported the aggressive group upon her return from patrol and the high command decided to take definitive action to eliminate this new menace to submarine operations. After returning from the first patrol, the Fargo was ordered to hunt in the open Pacific for a week until the Harrisburg and Detroit could join her. The three would together enter the Sea of Japan. Together they should be more than a match for one of these squadrons.
The three submarines met in the open sea about eight hundred miles from the entrance to the Sea of Japan. All had refueled and the Harrisburg and Detroit were carrying extra torpedoes for the Fargo. At sea they replaced the sixteen torpedoes she had expended during the week her skipper later described in his report as relatively quiet. After a conference they submerged and moved off to attack. They had decided to stay about ten miles apart, with only two charging batteries at a time so the other could maintain a better listening watch. The diesels were too noisy for the sonar to be really effective. The boat running on batteries would maintain a watch for the others, three sonar pings was the word to go silent.
The Harrisburg and Fargo had fully charged their batteries, now it was the Detroit's turn. To keep everyone with fully charged batteries, the Fargo would go on listening watch for part of the Detroit's charging time and the Harrisburg would stay on Diesel. When the Fargo was nearly done, the Harrisburg would go on watch and the Detroit would top off her batteries. With this done they were as ready as they could be. For two days they moved west and saw nothing. The third day the Fargo spotted smoke on the horizon.
It was a merchant convoy but as they closed radar showed another formation of ships seven miles beyond them. The plan of attack was formulated and they moved in. The Harrisburg and the Fargo would go around the convoy to cover the other formation which they were sure was one of the destroyer squadrons. When the Harrisburg was in position it signaled on the UHF. Two minutes later the Fargo signaled she was in position too. The Detroit had her firing setups ready and eight fish were fired within forty seconds. Before the Japanese were aware of their presence, four ships were hit and sinking. Two fish were kept in the tubes of each submarine for defense. The usual drill for a sub after firing was to go deep, turn away dead slow and remain quiet to escape. Her torpedoes expended on the merchant ships, the Detroit instead went deep, closed the convoy at high speed and went under it, moving toward the other formation from a direction the enemy would expect to be safe. The noise caused by the activity of the escorts covered her move. Meanwhile her crew was reloading her empty tubes. By the time she reached the other side of the convoy she had five of the empty tubes reloaded and was setting up firing solutions using sonar fixes. These would not be accurate enough to use for firing but would only have to make one quick periscope observation to refine the data before firing. The Japanese merchant escorts contributed to the confusion by continuing to depth charge the area the Detroit had fired from. This only led the approaching destroyers to bore in take on this threat. When they were about 5000 yards from the convoy, the Fargo and Harrisburg opened fire. Each fired eight torpedoes. The three cruisers were double targeted, leaving two destroyers which would not be fired upon. Of the sixteen torpedoes, fourteen hit their marks. All three cruisers and nine of the destroyers were hit. Although only one of the cruisers and five destroyers would sink quickly none of those hit would be effective for the rest of the action. After firing, the two subs headed toward the Detroit and passed her with the three undamaged destroyers in pursuit. The Detroit now had her six forward tubes and all but one of her stern tubes reloaded. All nine fish were expended on the three destroyers. None of them survived.
The two destroyers escorting the convoy turned back toward the Detroit. The Fargo and Harrisburg now had several torpedoes on line and fired. These two ships both sank within minutes. As these ships were going down, the three boats now had seven torpedoes loaded. They allocated these to the surviving merchant ships, fired them and then made for the open sea at best underwater speed. They knew aircraft would join the fight soon and they wanted to be as far away as possible. They had sunk all but one of the cruisers in the squadron, two screening destroyers and seven merchant ships. One of the crack Japanese submarine hunting squadrons had been destroyed in its first action.
On the way back to the supply boat they sank another five ships. They provisioned and turned south to raid. The next week was fruitful and ten days later they returned to the supply boat for additional torpedoes. They provisioned and were ready for a foray into the sea of Japan when they were diverted to cover Midway. Two more boats like themselves would join them there, the Wheeling and the Columbus in addition to twenty one of the older boats.
By the time action off Midway was over, the Japanese had lost two aircraft carriers and a host of other ships. The remnant of the invasion force withdrew. The submarines and the Japan recon B-17's had together won the Battle of Midway. Only one Japanese ship was sunk by aircraft, the invasion force never really came within effective air attack range. The few B-17 raids were made at extreme range with reduced bomb loads, much of the scouting was done by B-17's that were tanked to allow them to operate at long range. Dolittle's pilots even got a chance to bomb in this action but none had any success. The spotting by the long range aircraft was crucial. They had spotted the fleet forming several weeks before, watched it and even gotten shots of it sailing. The Japanese fleet ran into the line of submarines that were placed in its path because the American high command knew exactly where to put them.
The German forces had been moving eastward for two years. Moscow fell early in the year, the only remaining resistance was from partisan groups. But these were worse to deal with than the Russian Army. They were absorbing more German soldiers than anyone had expected. They lived on German food, kept warm in German clothes, and effectively killed German Soldiers with German weapons. They had become so adept at raiding German supply dumps and convoys that they generally had food to give to the local residents while German Soldiers were eating sparse meals or going hungry. These acts of kindness only made the local residents more likely to forget to report them to the German Army. Frequently the Germans lost more supplies than they got through for their own soldiers. It was like the Russian Finnish war, only worse.
There had been persistent rumors that the government of the USSR had pulled back into the Uruals and was in fact building factories and weapons. There were reports of whole factories being stripped and burned before they fell to the Germans. The Germans called these reports false and continued to try to subdue the land they had taken. The average German soldier didn't know what to believe, he seemed caught between a rock and a hard place, he just wanted to be back home and done with the war. What he was hearing about the war in Russia from back home in no way matched what he was experiencing.
Hans Greiner breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled on his boots. He would soon have to go out and check the guards. Maybe they were finally winning against the partisans. Things had quieted during the first week of July, only one supply dump raid had been pulled off, there were generally more than one a day. For the first time this year the supply dump was full, food stocks were more than adequate and the fuel stocks were at an all time high. Yesterday's convoy brought food that had to be stored outside, there was no room in the buildings for it. In the officer's mess the German commander laughed as they drank Schnapps that had come in on the last convoy, the Russians had finally learned that the Germans were the super race, resistance was futile.
As Hans started back to his quarters he saw a flash of light on the hill west of the base, stopped to watch it and saw nothing more. He continued on to his quarters, maybe he too was getting too jumpy. Just as he was removing his boots he heard gunfire and explosions burst outside. He ran to the window in time to see a grenade smash it and fall on the floor. Before he could react, it exploded. Hans, like most of the Germans in the compound died before they could get off a shot.
By morning, only ten of the German soldiers in the regiment were still alive, these were on patrol and saw the action from the hillside. They wisely hid and did not return to the base. With that action the Russians had taken a fully stocked German supply base without destroying it or the equipment. The Russians allowed the Germans to deliver the supplies and then took them. Three more supply convoys arrived and unloaded before the German high command learned the base was in Russian hands and notified the Command in Russia to stop them. With the taking of this base, twenty more outposts were placed in jeopardy, they couldn't be supplied. Had this been an isolated event it would have been serious, but the during the same day the Russians made similar successful raids on at least six other bases. On one base the Germans put up resistance, some of the equipment was destroyed, but this was only a minor setback for the Russians.
They now had fifteen German tanks, dozens of trucks and other vehicles as well as food and ammunition. One of the bases was an airport with ten Stuka's and twelve ME-109's. These too were taken intact along with stocks of bombs, ammunition and spare parts. The Russians moved the planes and tanks and covered them in case the Germans tried to destroy them. As meager as it was, the Russian partisans now had an air force.
On July 11, 1944 short wave radio listeners in Britain and the US heard a new English Language station on the 43 meter band. It was called Radio Free Russia, and it represented what they called the Free Russian government. According to the reports, deep in the Uruals the Russian government had undergone a revolution, communism was out, democracy was in. The American and British governments had no idea whether this was for real or if it were a hoax. The tentative answer came from Germany with the Fuerher denouncing them as criminals.
The Allies now had a challenge, could they help the Russian Government in any way? Basic to that was, how to contact them. This was solved several days later when a military listening station in Britain picked up a message. The first part of it was in clear text, identifying the originator only as Donald Warford who claimed to be a U. S. citizen in the Uruals with the Russian Government. The remainder of the message was in some form of code, a check of the records showed Warford was a member of a Naval group sent to help the Russians in 1942. He was reported missing when the last convoy sailed from Murmansk and had been presumed dead. They took the coded portion of the message and decoded it using a code book in effect on the day he should have been evacuated. The message said:
Contact me using this code on 3.866 Megacycles at 20:00 Grenich. I will be listening every day for the next two weeks. There followed a series of messages to Warford, asking for details about his mother, his wife, his grandmother and his home. It took a week to positively verify that he was really alive.
With this confirmation, contact with the new Russian government had been established. There was little they could do to help them for now. Warford, a junior naval officer, had by a twist of fate become the first Ambassador the new government of Russia. How much could the Allies help her? She was now cut off in every side by Axis forces. One answer was clear, pressure on the combatants.
The Montipellar and Salem transited the Panama canal and headed west toward Japan. Air recon photos of Japanese coastal areas were given to Mush just before he sailed. Once west of Pearl they would transit the Pacific alone and bombard selected targets on the Japanese coast. The crews of both boats had been increased by eight men for the gun crew and an ammunition ready box had been placed on the deck behind the gun. This sealed box held over a hundred rounds of five inch, enough to keep the gun firing for a time. The Harrisburg and Boston would be entering the same areas, but they would attack shipping to create a diversion.
Both boats had twelve torpedoes and they were able to make use of most of them. Mush sank three destroyers who tried to stop his bombardment on the third night and the Salem sank two tankers in a harbor with the deck gun.
The international press picked up a planted story that the bombardment had been done by a special battleship the Americans had developed that could be made invisible. The American people heard the story from this source and the morale boost was far more significant than the damage which was far from trivial. At one port, a tank farm was destroyed and the fire spread to warehouses of supplies for the Japanese army in Canada. Air recon photos a week later showed the damage and supported a return raid. All of this action was done with the old five inch deck gun. Mush had proven that the deck gun could be effective even if it was puny.
Captain Russell yawned as he read the reports from the Montipellar and Salem and looked at the photos of from the B-17's. If this much damage could be done by a puny five inch with nothing but better ammunition handling then all the work he and his men had done, the weeks of sixteen hour days, they were worthwhile. He had worried about pushing the men so hard for so long, but the schedule called for a test of the new submarine in early August. The ship wasn't even completed when he was given the schedule. Getting ready for a shakedown of a new model of ship just wasn't possible in ten weeks he told the Admiral in mid-July, let alone the six allotted, but when the officers and men were briefed they pitched in. Now five weeks and three days later they were sailing for the last test before leaving for combat. Russell marveled at what they had accomplished. He was tired, the men were tired, maybe they would be able to get some rest on the trip to the Pacific.
Just before 1300 the Peoria slipped her moorings at the Electric Boat works for a test run. If successful it would prove the value of a new weapon she had been built to carry. Actually the new ship had almost been built around the weapon. The mission of the Peoria was so critical and the ammunition supplies so short there could be only one successful test before she transited the Panama Canal for the Pacific. As soon as she cleared the harbor she dove and proceeded toward a deserted island about thirty miles off the coast of Maine. The army checked out the island just today to be sure nobody was there. Even now the soldiers were moving off the island to the Clinton, one of three destroyers patrolling offshore. The Peoria was using her underwater diesel power, she would continue to do so until she was close to the target. The use of the Diesels underwater was chosen for several reasons, first to get her crew another shakedown running in this mode, second to make the trip faster, third to make her more definitive to the destroyers following her, and finally because in the heavy seas, she would ride better underwater. A destroyer, the Warden followed her out of the harbor and trailed along about two miles behind her, close enough to be able to communicate with her on the underwater phone and distant enough for the Warden to make effective sonar sweeps. Two other destroyers preceded her to insure that no U-boats were in the area. The Peoria rode in a triangle of protection. This test must be kept a secret.
The Peoria was the first of a new class of submarine, over twice the size of the Harrisburg. In spite of its size, its speed was only a knot less than the Harrisburg but it had two major differences in its armament. It had a twin eight inch gun mount just aft of the conning tower. Although not quite an even match for a light cruiser, on the surface the Peoria had substantial firepower. She was more than a match for a destroyer primarily because she could engage the destroyer long before the destroyer's main guns could even threaten her. By comparison, the Harrisburg had a single five inch gun that fired a single shell less than a quarter the size of the Peoria's guns. And the five inch range was just over half the range of the eight. Unlike cruiser eight inch guns which used a loose projectile and bags of powder that had to be loaded separately though the breech like a black powder rifle, the Peoria eight inch used a fixed brass cased shell like a hunting rifle. The ready ammunition, fifty rounds in all, was stored with the gun. The twin eight could go into action within a few seconds of breaking the water and could fire all of the ready ammunition in just over two minutes. The gun was actually an eight inch version of the 40 mm Borfors, the rate of fire was about one pair of rounds every five seconds. A hatch below the gun had a lift to bring additional rounds to the gun so firing could continue but the intent of this weapon was hit hard and dive rather than to conduct a sustained fight. The ready ammunition locker was accessible from the boat while underwater and could be restocked without surfacing.
The Peoria was shaped like the Harrisburg but had one distinct advantage, she had a pair of stabilizer fins that could help control rolling when on the surface and under way. The idea was akin to ailerons on aircraft. Unlike the submarine diving planes that are like aircraft elevators, both sides can be angled up or down at the same time to make the submarine go deep or shallow, the stabilizers could be turned up on one side and down on the other to cause the boat to roll or prevent it if properly controlled. The automatic control on the Peoria was less than perfect, but it did reduce rolling significantly when on or hear the surface. In addition, turns in the water at high speed caused less problems for the men on board, the deck could be angled like a bank in an airplane. There were two sets of these stabilizers, one fore and one aft. In an emergency they could be used to supplement the diving planes to allow the boat to make faster dives or assents. These stabilizers were necessary if the Peoria was to fight on the surface and have the shape to provide the underwater speed.
The boat had four lower cargo holds that were enormous and her fore deck was raised just over six feet by a compartment that ran nearly the whole width and length of the fore deck. One of the cargo holds, the one under the conning tower was her magazine. A smaller rear portion of it was reserved for the eight inch ammunition. The front portion of this hold carried the ammunition for the sub's main armament. The other holds could each transport two platoons of troops and their equipment.
Just before 1600 hours the Peoria came to periscope depth. She had proceeded by dead reckoning to a point just off an island, in fact only a quarter mile adjustment would be needed to place them in the exact spot for the test. They made the correction and all systems in the submarine were checked for the hundredth time.
At 1650 the Peoria surfaced and Captain Russell looked out from the bridge over the expanse of the fore deck. All was clear. He gave an order never before given on a submarine, "Prepare for rocket fire." In the conn the exec was checking the position, the heading and making minute corrections. As the captain watched, the center of the fore deck split and opened like a clamshell. This exposed one hundred rockets on launchers, raised and ready to fire. The Captain and the lookouts moved to the protected area of the bridge and the order was given to fire. Their lives would have been in jeopardy if the rockets were fired with them on the front of the bridge.
The lookout on the deck of the Warden, the destroyer that was observing the test saw the launch and turned to the captain, "Sir, she blew up." The Peoria disappeared in what appeared to be a gigantic blast of smoke and fire. When the smoke cleared, she was gone. Actually it was a series of launches because the rocket fire was staggered to prevent the projectiles from hitting each other but they were so close together that the launches seemed almost simultaneous. With the last rocket off, Captain Russell and the lookouts quickly inspected the launch bay for unfired rockets or other debris that would prevent closing the compartment. The area was clear. The firing had been flawless.
"Close the rocket bay," came the order. The clamshell doors closed.
"Bay confirmed closed," came the next response. From below came the response, "Rocket bay is closed and sealed," the diving officer had already pumped in compressed air and it had held. The Peoria could dive with the rocket bay open but it would be flooded. The equipment in it would have to be dried out before it could be used.
"Clear the bridge, Dive, Dive, Dive," came the command from the captain, "Take her down to 150." The klaxon screamed to alert everyone to close all outside openings to prepare the boat for its dive.
As the Peoria reached 150 feet, the quartermaster called out, "6:35." The actual time since the Peoria broke the surface was less than seven minutes. The official goal had been to fire in less than ten minutes, but Captain Russell and the Peoria's crew had beat the time by more than three minutes. As it was, the launch had taken thirty five seconds more than their goal. She had surfaced, checked bearings, fired one hundred and eight rockets, each weighing over 630 pounds and returned below the surface. The rockets could travel over twenty five miles carrying a 325 pound warhead. A longer range version could travel just over forty five miles but delivered only a 120 pound warhead. During the dive the diving officer would add 67,800 pounds of water to the ballast to properly trim the boat. Had they been unable to close the rocket bay, this would have been unnecessary. This is a fact of life for a submarine, whatever is discharged or taken aboard must be known to compensate for the weight loss or gain. Without that compensation the boat will be light or heavy, in a critical diving situation this can result in being unable to force a dive or worse, a too heavy boat might start a descent that could not be controlled. With torpedoes, a firing of a full spread, six fore and four aft would lighten the boat by slightly over 20,000 pounds, one third the rocket weight and over an interval of nearly a minute as compared to less than twelve seconds for the rockets. With torpedoes, the water that filled the torpedo tubes after they were ejected by compressed air made up for a good portion of the weight loss. With the rockets the full 67,800 pounds was lost. The crew of the Peoria would only see pictures of the rockets impacting. They were headed to the safety of deep water by the time the rockets landed twenty five miles away. With the firing over, both ships turned toward port. The destroyer captain was happy to have a report from sonar that a submarine was following him on diesel. This confirmed that the Peoria had survived the test. Although he had told the seaman that there was no reason to worry, he too had seen the Peoria seemingly disappear in the fireball. A signal was made to the photo recon aircraft to take pictures of the target area. They would be available for viewing before the Peoria reached port. She would come back to a smiling admiral. The test was a complete success. Of the one hundred and eight rockets, ninety eight of them were inside the target area. Two had apparently been short rounds and had hit more than ten miles short. The others had been within a mile of the target.
When the Peoria leveled off at one hundred fifty feet, Captain Russell addressed the men over the intercom. "We had a successful launch, all of the rockets fired. We beat the Navy's goal of ten minutes easily, in fact it was six minutes thirty five seconds. That's thirty five seconds over our goal, but that means we were up where the enemy could hit us for three minutes less than the Navy thinks is safe. We need to continue to shoot for excellence, and we'll get it. Now comes the real work, let's get that bay reloaded. The Navy says it'll take us twelve hours, let's see what we can do."
Submariners are accustomed to manhandling two thousand pound torpedoes, but they are stored in the same room as the torpedo tubes and literally slid into place. Each of the rockets stored in the hold had to be connected to an overhead trolley, unbolted from the floor and moved to the lift on the trolley. If they were not always supported, they could come loose and on a rolling ship they would be a hazard to the men and the ship. Three teams of six men were engaged in this preparation. Once at the lift the rockets were connected to it, freed from the overhead trolley and lifted three levels to the rocket bay. There they were connected to a trolley that was captive on rails in the deck. An overhead trolley would have interfered with the doors. The headroom in the bay was just under six feet, making it seem cramped. The rockets were each wheeled to a launcher, lifted by the built in crane and placed on the launcher. Before this could be done each launcher was cleaned and tested to be sure it would function by another crew. After all of the rockets were in place the primers were inserted. These were actually inserted and then removed to make the bay safe. By the time the Peoria made port the next morning at 0200 the rockets were in place and ready to be fired. The Peoria's crew had bested the Navy time by a full two hours.
A few repairs were made and the Peoria sailed for the Pacific three days later. Actual bombardment of Japan and its territories was a goal that had only been scratched by the B-17V's. They could only attack a very limited number of targets and their bomb loads were pathetically small. A bomber could fly a fourteen hour mission and drop only a little over 2,000 pounds of bombs. The goal was to attack ports and facilities, to further damage the ability to wage war but the B-17V just couldn't do it.
Several ideas were put forth, including full blown surface attacks, seaplane attacks and submarine gun attacks. The surface ships could never come within the range of aircraft and survive, it was likely that they would be sunk before the actual attack. The seaplanes could be refueled by a submarine and even possibly rearmed and sent back for a second raid but they were too slow to survive the long flight in Japanese held airspace. The submarine attacks would never have the impact desired, the single five inch gun of the submarine was just not up to the task. Its range was too short for any but shore targets, its rate of fire too slow, even with the on deck ammunition locker the ammunition handling was a nightmare and meaningful bombardments took too long, the Japanese would have time to bring up destroyers to kill the submarine. Finally someone suggested placing heavy guns on a submarine and allowing it to perform shore bombardment. The Peoria was equipped to do this with her eight inch gun but everyone on board hoped they would never have to put it to the test. The crew preferred the speedy bombardment of the rockets.
To use the eight incher, the Peoria would have to give up its primary defense, its ability to hide. Meanwhile it announced its presence to the enemy by firing. Even at night its muzzle flash would point to itself. The time to fire a meaningful amount of projectiles was long enough to allow the enemy time to react. The crew liked the rockets. Sure they were heavy, it took most of the crew to man the boat and reload them after a firing and it was nearly ten hours of hard work. They could carry only enough rockets for five firings, but in the roughly fifteen days they would be on active patrol they would be a definite problem for the Japanese.
Six B-17's were headed for home islands, it was a routine photo operation, the mission description was take pictures of selected targets and then make a sweep over the islands taking pictures of anything that might be of interest till the film ran out. On the egress from Japan two of the planes each encountered several fighters that climbed up to their altitude, made one gun pass and fell away. They apparently were able to climb but were able to sustain the altitude. The fighters were each only able to make two passes and then were gone. One plane saw an island with a runway, they had several minutes of film so they made two passes to cover all of it. On the second pass they encountered two more fighters. The one was able to get close enough to inflict some damage on the B-17. It holed the crew cabin and depressurized it. They were able to stay on emergency oxygen bottles long enough to get clear of the islands, then they dropped to below 5000 feet for the remainder of the run back to Midway. The information about the fighters and the island was passed on at the debriefing after the flight. That information and the defender's gun camera films were sent back to the mainland.
Over the years Mark Fuller often wondered if he was really a significant part of the war effort. Although he flew in the Russian evacuation missions and frequently did special ops, more than enough to keep his flying status, he never felt he was pulling his weight. For nearly six months he had been assigned to review all the film and the reports from the over island flights, to assess what the Japanese were doing that would impact the air groups. Today he got a package with the data from the August 17 raid. He was expecting it so he came in early, he knew it would be there by 0600 so he was waiting when it arrived. He was in a foul mood, the ankle of his artificial leg froze the day before and he was on crutches. Carol would drop the leg off at the shop today, with luck it would be fixed within a week. But in spite of this, he was there to see the film as soon as it was available. He read the report of the fighters getting up to altitude and actually making a successful pass on the B-17. He pulled the tail gunner's film and ran it several times, stopping and counting frames as he watched the plane climb. He then pulled the film from a previous flight that was attacked, he watched it as the fighters came up and fell off. They never got as close. They never got as high. He counted frames again.
It was obvious, the new fighters had a speed advantage over the old ones, possibly as much as 40 knots and the maximum altitude of a zoom climb was at least 1500 feet higher. The Japanese had made more than a slight improvement in the fighter.
He started his report, this was bad news for the air crews. He then looked at the island photos. They showed an airport and some buildings. He checked and found that there were old photos of the island. He pulled them and began a comparison. There were several significant additions to the structures on the island. The army base on the one side of the island was still there, but on the other end of the island the Japanese had constructed an airport with a single set of four parallel runways. There were hangers, enough to handle over fifty fighters and several big enough for transports. The photos showed planes being serviced and some buildings that Mark did not recognize as related to military aircraft.
By the time he noticed the time it was nearly 1300. He picked up his crutches and walked to the mess. There he picked up a cold sandwich and some over cooked coffee, all that was left of the lunch. He would normally have gone back to his desk to eat but with the crutches he could not carry the coffee and he really needed that coffee. He sat it on the nearest table and sat down. He was just finishing the final sips of the coffee when the door opened and Charlie Crawford, one of the photo interpreters from the Army stomped in. He grabbed a cold sandwich and a cup of coffee and sat down across from Mark.
"This damm army, keep you looking at pictures so you miss lunch and for what? So someone can say it really isn't what you know it is."
"What pictures?"
"Pictures of military movements in Canada, they want to know exactly how many troops. There are Japs there, lots of them, more than last month, who cares how many. There are things there I can't identify, things that may be important, but they are interested in troops. I worry about what I don't know."
"What do you think are important?"
"The Japs are building some buildings near one of the airports near Anchorage. We have no idea what they are, and nobody else recognizes them."
He reached out his hand, "I'm Mark Fuller, Airports and airplanes are my thing, can I take a look?"
He took Mark's hand, "Charlie Crawford, you sure can look. Grab your sandwich and let's go." Charlie slid back his chair and stood up before he saw the crutches. "Oops, sorry, I didn't know."
Mark pointed to his leg, "Lost it at Pearl. The wooden one is at the carpenter's shop. The replacement didn't last as long as the original part." Mark burst out laughing. Charlie started to smile. They ate the last of the sandwiches and Mark slid his chair back, "If you can pick up my cup and bring it along, I'm ready to go. I need that coffee."
"If you're going to look at the pictures, I'll not only carry it back, let me fill them before we leave."
Mark nodded and they both headed to Charlie's desk. He handed Mark a picture, it showed an airport. Charlie pointed to buildings at edge of the picture. Mark pulled out a magnifier and looked at the picture for a few seconds. He pointed to the edge of the photo. "Are these the buildings?"
"No, the ones I'm talking about are up here," he pointed to the other edge of the picture.
Mark looked at these buildings too. "The ones above are most likely engine repair shops, not really important, they Japs are just building up their presence here. Rather than sending engines back to the Japan or to a ship they are servicing them on shore."
"We suspected they were building up, but this is another confirmation. Thanks."
"Don't you want to know about the other buildings, the ones I was looking at?"
"Well, yes, if there is something there."
"They're like some buildings I have on another picture, they look like they are under construction, but I've never seen them before today. We got pictures on a pass over an island."
"We have a guy here who claims to be the best, let's let him look at them." He motioned to someone at the next desk. The guy came over, Charlie pointed to him, "Dave Dell, photo interpreter par excellence."
Dave Extended his hand, "I'll live up to that. But my field is German planes, not Japs. The stupid army put me where, west coast. What you want?"
"We have some buildings the Japs have built in two places, we can't figure out what they are."
Dave looked at the buildings. He asked for the pictures of them, Mark clumped down the hall and brought them back. "Here."
He whistled. "These buildings are the ones the Gerries use to handle the fuel for their high altitude fighters. And look here, there is the truck to handle the fuel."
"So the Japs could be planning to station some high altitude fighters here?"
"You bet."
Back at his desk Mark picked up the information and looked at the other pictures. The Japs were building dormitories, shops, and a host of other buildings. He went to his commanding officer.
Three photo crews and eight tanker crews were awakened at 0100, they had expected several more days off, but they were being called out for a mission. They were briefed and by 0330 their planes were ready. They flew to the tanking point together, took on as much fuel as possible and then headed west at different speeds. They arrived over the target at different times, nearly a half hour apart. Each made several passes and then they retreated out to sea. Several fighters came up, none got within gun range. The planes retreated at different speeds to arrive at the refueling point together. When they arrived on the ground two of the other B-17's were ready to take off. The film was removed from their cameras and split between the planes, they took off and headed east.
Mark, Charlie and Dave were arrived at the base at 2200 hours, the film from the special overflight arrived and was being processed. They were to be ready to look at them when they came from the lab. Within an hour they identified many features, but the most significant things were shops that could be used to fabricate aircraft. The first flight also photographed several planes that were hidden on the second and third flights. These were studied in detail. Apparently the Japs did not want them to see the planes but one pass got the pictures of them. By morning the report of the pictures was complete and they were asleep. It was now up to the brass to determine what action would be taken.
It took the Peoria thirty one days to reach the home waters of Japan. For security she hadn't entered the harbor at Pearl or Midway but sailed directly east. She had been given a list of targets and told to go hunting. Even the brass at Pearl did not know which of the target she would pick or the order of attack. Off Wake she met a Harrisburg class boat, the Salem, who would accompany her. They would serve as protection for each other when each had to recharge batteries. When the Peoria went in to fire, the Salem would stand off shore as protection, then they would move on together. The Salem had one modification that was obvious to the Peoria crew. She too carried the eight inch gun, all new Peoria and Harrisburg boats would carry this weapon and all of the older boats were being retrofitted as they returned to port. The Navy had this thing about heavy guns.
When they came to periscope depth off Osaka it was 0200, the air was clear and the moon had already set. It was a perfect setup, the aiming points were definitive, the angles to the three points agreed and the systems were ready. Captain Russell again gave the order, "Surface action, rocket fire." The exec was on the periscope continuing to check bearings right until the firing. This had to be right. The all clear was given, the rockets fired and the Peoria slipped below the waves and moved off at full speed on her diesels. After 15 minutes she went to silent running and continued out to sea. Both she and the Salem would move seaward during the day, reload as soon as they were clear and then spend the next day approaching the second target. At 0100 they surfaced and made another attack. They had no indication of results of the first attack, this one was being made on faith in the weapons. Again they stood to sea and reloaded. Captain Russell decided to head north for the next load and wait one more night before the third attack. The men were tired from the previous day of reloading and there was no sense in helping the Japanese find them by establishing a pattern.
The next raid was on the port of Koyota. Just after firing they saw a ship pull away from the dock. They dove and went to silent running. The exec had the periscope up and was watching the ship when the rockets landed. He momentarily lost the ship in the background of fire and smoke which started in an oil storage area. Several of the crew got a chance to see the fire before they began to move out to sea. Their description of the fire grew in size but not in accuracy during the night.
They heard explosions behind them as they neared the renduvois point. The Salem was late. They waited for about twenty minutes before the sonar operator called out, "Salem coming in, she's OK, but three Jap destroyers went to the bottom."
The three destroyers which had been sent to deal with the Peoria had tangled with the Salem who had set up a rear guard action. The destroyers came out of port, intent on punishing the Peoria for the attack and ran into an ambush. The Salem was commanded by Captain Jim Forsythe, referred to by his men as Old Four Oh Forsythe. He and Russell served on an S boat together and like Russell, nothing less than perfect was good enough. Their shooting that night was nothing less. They expended three torpedoes to sink three destroyers, a seemingly impossible feat. Jim had often told his officers to be careful with expending torpedoes because he didn't want to have to explain the misuse of government property. On this mission, he would have nothing to fear. The destroyers had been so intent on tracking the Peoria that they weren't aware of the Salem. The second and third torpedoes hit within five seconds of the first.
While the Peoria reloaded, the two captains conversed on the 450 band. They had a plan to make the patrol more fun and fruitful. After the reload was finished Captain Russell called the chief of the boat to the conning tower. "Can you make me a couple of rafts that will make some smoke, light and noise that we can drop over the side just before we dive?"
The chief nodded after an explanation of what was to be accomplished. He went to work and by evening two rafts had been fashioned. When they were dropped into the water, the lookout would pull a string. A clock would start and six minutes later a light would come on and two smoke flares would light. They would try it on the next attack.
Off the port of Yamada the Peoria prepared to deliver her fourth load of rockets. At 0230 they were in position and ready to fire. The decoy raft was on the aft deck, ready for launch. Just after the rockets were fired the raft was dropped and the Peoria sped away under water. Upon seeing the rocket fire, the Salem surfaced, dropped a similar raft and sped off to cover the Peoria's retreat. The Japanese shore patrols were getting better, they were getting under way in minutes. The first ones got away quickly and approached the Peoria's launch point while she was in torpedo range. She launched three torpedoes from her stern tubes and continued her withdraw. One of the torpedoes hit and when the Peoria returned to periscope depth the patrol boat was in two pieces, both were sinking. Several destroyers in the port were able to get under way and followed the Salem. They soon found these destroyers were the best of the A team. The Salem tried to fire torpedoes but couldn't break free long enough to get a clean setup. In the Peoria Captain Russell assessed the situation and turned off the track of the Salem, went to periscope depth and got a good setup on the destroyers. He dispatched four torpedoes at the two ships. Three of them hit sending one of the boats to the bottom and damaging the other. The stern tubes were fired and the remaining destroyer nimbly dodged them. The Peoria was reloading, had no more torpedoes available to fire and the destroyer was still effective. The normal action for submarines faced with this situation was to go deep, be quiet, take a depth charging and slip away. Today it would not be that way. What happened was the Japanese destroyer captain's worst nightmare. He was accustomed to having submarines stay down and try to avoid him.
"Gun action, surface," came the command, "We're going to take out that tin can. Let's see if that pop gun they gave us is any good. Exec, give bearing and range to the target."
"Range, 3500 yards, bearing 182," came the response. "Conn, turn to heading 092, let's cross the T," came the command from the captain. Although a submarine commander, Russell had studied the naval greats, John Paul Jones, Perry and Jellico. All had won because they had been able to cross the T, to place their ship in a position to use its maximum fire power to be the most effective. When crossing the T, the ship can bring all guns to bear and the guns of the ship crossing the T are easier to target. What he was doing was limiting the Japanese destroyer's rate of fire and making the enemy's fire control more difficult. Although he had only one gun and the position did not allow him more fire power, his gun control was simpler.
A minute later they surfaced with their beam toward the destroyer and opened fire. The destroyer was within range of the Peoria's eight inch but was unable to reach the Peoria with her five inch guns. The first four shots were off, but the Peoria fired only twelve rounds of her ready ammunition before an explosion rocked the destroyer. She took a quick list, stopped and began to go down by the head. By the time the Peoria was diving, the lift was running and the ready ammunition was replaced. The men now had confidence in their new weapons.
Three hours later the Salem and the Peoria were in relative safely many miles off shore. On the next radio check the two captains were notified of the results of their raid on the oil storage tanks at Honshu. They had hit the main storage areas and the fires were still burning in the oil tanks and surrounding area two days later when the B-17V's took pictures. The rockets breached the tanks and the oil and aviation gasoline poured out so fast that it gushed out of the storage area and started fires in the surrounding industrial and refinery area. The raid was a rousing success. The two subs continued their patrol, firing the remaining rockets. The Peoria did not have another opportunity to use her torpedoes or her eight incher but the Salem sank six more destroyers "protecting" the Peoria. A couple of freighters that got in the way were dispatched with the deck gun, as Jim Forsythe put it, to save torpedoes and prevent them from reporting our position.
When the Peoria expended her rockets she was recalled to Midway. The Salem was also recalled and they sailed together for protection. They had proven that the large submarines could effectively bombard the Japanese coast. They had also found that the two submarines needed each other for protection. Even the more nimble Salem had been saved from possible threat by the Peoria. Now they would get a chance to try an even more difficult task.
One result of the bombardment was a move by the Japanese to better defend the home islands. This would make the bombardment more difficult and risky in the future but it pulled back ships, aircraft and pilots from other areas, including Canada. Pictures of the destruction wrought by the Peoria were released to the press. Within weeks it was obvious that there was a change in public opinion, the war would be prosecuted to the end.
When the Peoria was running the first live fire test, two sister ships, the Scranton and Cleveland were being completed at Electric Boat. They were launched and were now at Midway. The next mission would include all three Peoria class boats and six of the Harrisburg class boats. The most lethal American attack force since December 7, 1941 of was about to be put to sea.
Charlie Miller looked at sixteen tankers sitting on the runway. He spent the last ten months training crews, then saw them fly off to war. Sixteen more would be ready to go to Europe tomorrow morning. By evening there would be sixteen new planes delivered by air and sixteen more crews would come in by bus, he would train them and in a month they would be gone. Of the sixteen planes, four were piloted by experienced crews.
He was just starting the paperwork for the transfers when the base commander came into the office. Mark Fuller was there. The base commander was carrying a paper which he handed to Charlie. "Read this and tell me what you make of it."
Charlie took the paper and read it at least twice before he looked up. The orders called for modifying the tankers on the runway to allow them to be refueled in the air and train the crews of those planes to be fuel recipients. Refueling a tanker seemed strange to Charlie but orders were orders.
"It looks like we want the tankers to be able to go a long way to refuel someone. Guess we had better get to it. And they want us to be ready to move out in five days."
Charlie and the CO went to the maintenance area and got the modification process started. Then they called the crews together. Eight of them were designated to learn the refueling process.
By 1700 two days later all of the planes were modified and the training was completed. Charlie and the exec filed flight plans for Pearl and then Midway for the following day. They would fly there and be briefed on their mission.
When Captain Russell returned to the ship after the mission briefing he called the officers together, then addressed the men. "You probably all know that some of our fly boys are making trips over Japan taking pictures. We need those pictures for a lot of reasons. They give us targets and tell us how we're doing with our attacks, like on our last patrol, they gave us pictures of the targets before and after the raid so we know if we're doing the job. Now they have a problem and we're going to solve it. About two hundred miles off the coast of Japan they have built an air base on an island. They have based high altitude fighters there and are experimenting with new models, trying to hit our planes. We believe they have shops there and there are engineers and technicians there working with the pilots. If we hit this island now, we can set the work back possibly a year. We need that year, they tell me, and they didn't tell me why, and the admiral didn't know why either. When they don't tell you something like that in this navy, it means it's so important they can't let you know. And let me assure you, when they don't tell Admirals, it really is important."
"Tomorrow we will begin loading for the mission. We'll be receiving a new model of rocket. They have a new propellant that gives them a forty mile range but they have the full warhead weight of the shorter range model and a more powerful explosive in the head. The other three boats will be doing likewise. We'll be getting twenty four extra crew members and extra trolleys for the rocket bay and the hold. The lift will be modified to handle three rockets on each trip rather than one and it will go up faster. They want us to be able to reload in three hours. The eight inch ammo will be doubled up for this trip and we will be taking on six platoons of marines. The Scranton and Cleveland will be loaded the same way."
"The six Harrisburg boats including the Salem will each have a single platoon of marines and two of them will have some aircraft experts. We'll know more when we get to sea. For now, get on with the things we need to do to have the boat ready. If anything needs fixed, let's get it done."
The sixteen modified tankers arrived at Midway. They occupied a portion of the base that had been built about three months ago and had not been occupied. They were denied contact with other units on the base. Ground crews were pulled out of the regular crews and moved to the new group. All were men who were scheduled to be rotated back to the states in a few weeks. The separation broke down only one time, one of the Catalinas on the base was returning from a search and flew near enough to two of the tankers in flight to see them practice a mid air refueling. When they landed the Catalina crew as put under guard and the next morning they were moved to the tanker group. Whatever this group was going to do was top secret.
No one other than the crews of the four planes with the special radios and the base commander had any idea of the mission objective. They had been given sealed orders before they left the states. They would not open them till they were airborne.
The special group had been designated Flight S. They were called together for the pre-flight briefing. Four of the planes had been fitted with a pair of radios that operated on the 450 MC band, these were four of those which had been fitted with refueling ports.
The sixteen planes took off together and headed east. About four hours out eight of the planes that could accept fuel were topped off from the remaining other eight planes. They turned for home.
Four hours later the four planes with the special radios were tanked and the four other planes turned for home. While they were tanking the other eight planes landed, refueled and were back in the air to meet the four second phase tankers.
When they met, the four second phase planes tanked and headed back east while the other eight planes headed back to Midway, refueled and headed back to meet the inbound flight.
The Peoria was in position just below the ocean surface, just off the coast of the island at just after midnight. Her rocket bay was fully loaded, but the firing circuits were on safe. The marines in her hold were ready to disembark for their runs to the beach. The order was given to surface and the Peoria began her task. Within a half mile of her the other two large boats and the two of the four Harrisburg boats were unloading their troops. Within twenty minutes twenty two platoons of men, nearly five hundred marines, were on their way to the beach. The marines on the Salem and Tuscon would be landed when the other marines had secured the beach. Their mission was to land with and protect the technicians. Their orders were to not allow them to fall into enemy hands.
As the troops headed toward the shore, the Peoria boats pulled offshore into firing positions - to be available if needed. Their fire would be a diversion, there was no assurance it would work. If the men were discovered, most would probably be killed, few of any would make it back to the ships and the mission would be a failure.
Captain Merris and his force were in rubber boats paddling to the shore. If the enemy found them now, they would be in a really difficult position. The Peoria boats could lace the beach and the Japanese base with their rockets, but when they were gone, so would be the protection. The boats could surface and support them with gunfire, primarily the eight inch, but this too had unacceptable risks and while the rocket boats were firing the eight inch, the rocket reload would be suspended. And even if all this fire power did protect the marines, the full success of the mission depended on the force landing and taking a large portion of the base before they were discovered. If the rockets were fired, this wouldn't be possible, the Japanese might be able to destroy the very things they had come to take with them.
In the boat Captain Merris wanted to yell to them, "paddle faster," but this wouldn't speed the process, it would only risk alerting the Japanese. He looked at a private on his right, paddling with all of his might. Merris had been totally candid with his men, they knew the risks and the chances of discovery. The private knew as well as the Captain that his life depended on hitting the beach before the Japanese knew they were there. Like the other men in the boat, he would make a maximum effort. None of the men in the first group knew why they were here except the Captain. If they were captured they would know nothing of value to the Japanese. Captain Merris had vowed that if things went wrong, he would not be taken alive. He had one grenade stuffed inside his shirt. If captured he would pull the pin and release the trigger when he was close to his captors.
Two hundred yards, one hundred yards, fifty, then they hit the beach. The Captain waved to spread out and they did so on a front of about one hundred yards. The boats disappeared behind rocks.
The radio man was carrying a special unit that operated on the 450 Megacycle band. It was the naval radio that operated line of sight making it unlikely that anyone would pick up the transmission. It was extremely heavy and needed a special power unit that consisted of four car batteries and a motor generator unit. The whole unit took four men to carry it but it was safe to use. There was a backup unit in the boats, it was left with the boats and the men who were staying on the beach in case it was needed by them. The first transmission from Captain Merris would release the other two platoons to begin their run to the beach. One of the landing party platoons would remain on the beach to secure it and wait for the other men. They would remain there when the other to platoons landed.
Captain Merris and his men advanced on a one hundred yard wide front toward the airfield. The lead men moved slowly, searching out sentries and killing them quietly. The advance of two miles would take over two hours.
Sgt. Wilson saw the sentry when he was fifty yards away. Corporal Myers and Private Mills were sent out quietly to dispatch him. In two minutes they saw him fall, the Corporal's hand over his mouth as the knife entered his back. He made no sound to alert others. Private Mills was at the same time taking out another man who had been hidden from the main force. Quietly they looked around, saw three more men and dispatched them. The force slowly moved forward. By now the other two platoons with the technicians were only about two hundred yards behind them.
"There she is," Captain Merris whispered to the men near him. In front of them was the air base and off to the left were the barracks and the work shops. "Let's move out and be careful, we need to get as much intact as possible. We don't want to blow up anything till we're ready to leave. Then we get to start the fireworks."
The men split into two groups, one moved toward the airfield and the other toward the workshops and barracks. Within a half hour both were secured and the technicians were moving in to evaluate the booty. All of this had been done without alerting the Japanese Army base on the far side of the airfield. Four platoons were assigned to get the Japanese engineers, pilots and craftsmen together. Lt. Carson reported to the Captain when they were ready. His report was a surprise.
"We got just under 250 of them, not the thirty or forty we expected. We'll never get them to the subs on time. It'll take at least four trips in the boats. It will be light before we get them all off."
"Any ideas what we should do with them?"
"Our orders were clear, if we couldn't get them out, kill them, but that was assuming we got trapped and couldn't get off ourselves. I don't like killing men just because we can't take them along. But we can't let them here."
"It would be ideal to take them all. Maybe we can." Captain Merris picked up the radio.
"Peoria, this is Merris."
"Peoria here, go ahead."
"We got 250 passengers, can you handle them?" Captain Russell looked at his exec.
"They have 250 people to get off in addition to ours, any ideas?"
"Each Peoria sub can handle more than eighty, the Harrisburgs can handle at least forty each, we have enough room if we can get them off the island. Let's look at the chart, there's a dock on the other side of the airfield. If they can get them there, it can handle large craft, we can go in."
"We can't protect them if we go in. They're sitting ducks."
"Let's say one of us goes in, takes as many as possible, puts them on the deck, pulls off and transfers them to the other boats as we move away. We take the critical ones below deck, if something goes wrong we dive with them on deck and they have to fend for themselves. Its better than just killing them now. At least they would have some chance." The captain nodded.
A conference with the other skippers brought agreement. Within ten minutes the dock was secured by the marines. Still the enemy had not been alerted. Captain Merris began moving the men and most of the troops toward the dock.
As they were beginning the move the men heard the sound of aircraft engines overhead. The plane flashed lights and then flew east of the island and circled with three other planes. Merris looked up, it was a B-17.
The 450 radio came alive, "This is nursemaid one, copy."
One of the technicians picked up the mic to the radio, "Nursemaid one, expect takeoff in eight minutes, are you in position? We have four children for you."
"Roger, nursemaid one is ready."
About ten minutes later, four twin engine aircraft took off and headed east.
Captain Merris smiled, the first objective of the mission had been achieved. Four of the experimental aircraft had been modified to allow mid-air refueling, started and had taken off with two Americans on each plane. They would soon meet with four tankers that were just east of the island. The pilots would have a very long flight to Midway.
The troops now were moving toward the dock with their prisoners and a significant number of documents from the workshops and offices. The men with the documents were given priority, with the aircraft in the air, this was now the most important next step of the mission. As they approached the dock, they saw a large ship tied up there. At first they thought they had missed an enemy ship but then they recognized it as the Cleveland. Her rockets were on safe, the men would be loaded quickly into every hatch they could open. Some were loaded in the rocket bay, it was closed and they were transferred after the submarine pulled off shore.
The Peoria loaded and pulled away leaving only the perimeter cover to Captain Merris and the platoons from the Harrisburg boats. The technicians and their protection platoons had been taken off and were now on the Peoria's rear deck. They would transfer to the Salem and the Tuscon as soon as the Peoria pulled out to sea. The operation was going almost like it was planned.
The Salem and Tuscon pulled next to the Peoria and their troops were transferred by raft. Just as the Peoria was pulling away from the Tuscon, the radio came alive with traffic. The boats close inshore were able to see flashes of rifle fire. A serious fire fight had started. Captain Merris and his men were retreating toward the beach when they were discovered and attacked. Four men went down with wounds in the first volley. They were helped by the others as they pulled back toward the beach.
The sky was beginning to lighten as they retreated. They must get back to the submarines soon. The men pulled back, the first platoons climbing into the boats and pulling offshore. The Springfield picked up her platoon and began to pull away, then turned back toward the beach. The Erie pulled in close, her men topside with automatic weapons. They were out of range but not so the eight inch. The Erie and Springfield eight inch guns opened fire to support the men on the beach.
Finally there were only six men on the beach firing at the Japanese, the others were all off shore except three men in each of two small boats that remained at the beach. The Erie pulled closer, picked up more men and finally came within range of its fifty caliber's. They opened fire, pinning down the Japanese on the beach just long enough for the defenders to move to the boats and pull away. The fire continued until the men were on board. The Springfield stood offshore and fired her eight inch gun until the Erie was safely away.
With Merris and his men safely on board, the Erie and Springfield pulled out to sea to cover the Peoria boats as they finished the mission. The enemy was now alert, they could expect return file. On shore explosions began, evidence that Captain Merris and his men had done their job well. Specific targets indicated by the technicians had been wired with explosives. Now the Peoria and her sisters would finish the job by inflicting more widespread destruction. The objective was to deny the Japanese of knowledge of what had been taken. The Salem and the Tuscon escorted by the Billings and the Fargo were already headed east with much of the information. Their cargo was too precious to even allow it to stay in the area.
From five miles off shore the three Peoria boats surfaced and fired the full load of rockets. They turned east to reload. Within three hours, they surfaced again about thirty miles off shore and fired the second volley. Fires were burning all over the island.
It would be weeks until the real magnitude of the strike was known and only a few people would actually be privy to that information until years after the end of the war. The crews of the submarines were only told that the mission was a success and many were awarded medals. The real story could not be told at the time. In addition to the airframe engineers who would have usually been there, a special group of Japanese Aircraft Engine designers were visiting on the island. They had been caught. They would have left the next day. The Japanese would be unable to get the high altitude aircraft program going again for several years. Their top engineers and test pilots were in American hands.
Flight S and the four planes that had been flown off the island arrived at Midway and were put under guard. The planes were also a wealth of information. They would be flown, tested, engaged in mock dogfights, made mock attacks on bombers and finally one would be taken apart and examined, one piece at a time. The Japanese had made several improvements in engines that would be assimilated by the American aircraft industry. Ironically, the loss of the engineers would deny the Japanese the advantage this would have given them.
The high altitude craft was of a new design. Its wings could be straight to allow it to climb at low power settings and then swept for speed. It's engines had superchargers that were better than anything in the US arsenal and they were of a simple design that would be more durable than anything on the drawing board. The plane could stay aloft for longer than any other fighter of the day, in addition to being the only fighter that could climb high enough to fight with the B-17SA. This plane would have become a serious hazard for the recon flights. That hazard had been eliminated. Although some existing craft could be a threat, they were marginal at best and the plane's defenses were capable of minimizing the threat.
The atom was split in an explosion in the desert. The tower that supported the bomb was vaporized, a 300 foot diameter crater nearly a hundred feet deep had replaced the flat area on which the tower once stood. The sand under the tower had been turned to a green glass-like substance that was more than mildly radioactive. The flash was seen a hundred miles away, temporary buildings a mile from the tower were destroyed. The bomb was a success but it was too big to be lifted by any operational plane in any air force. With the success came the need to make the bomb into a deliverable weapon. This dictated making it small enough to be carried by an existing aircraft.
Captain Merris was one of the men who witnessed the test. After the raid on the Japanese island air base he was transferred to British Columbia to lead the men fighting the Japanese. He was badly wounded in battle and returned home to recuperate in October of 1944. Just after Christmas he was assigned to Los Almos in logistics support under General Groves. He was found to be a capable officer who would put everything he had into wherever he was assigned. He threw himself into making sure the base had enough of everything from gasoline to toilet paper. Nothing the base needed was too unimportant or trivial. His men were treated well but nothing short of one hundred percent availability was tolerated unless the item just wasn't available from any source. One of his men mused that he routinely checked with Japanese bases before telling the skipper he couldn't get something and nobody was really sure this was far from the truth. And that morning he was there in the blockhouse to see the atom split.
Later in the morning General Groves found a stack of forms on his desk. Captain Merris had already prepared the first inch high stack of forms writing off items that had been totally destroyed by the blast including the tower. This stack would grow to over ten inches before the end of the month. General Groves signed them almost without looking at them, anyone who had seen the blast that morning would not question the devastation.
The first explosion came at 0103. It was in a residential district, The bomb experts estimated the size of the bomb at 1500 pounds or larger. The people in the area did not hear the plane that dropped it, they claimed to hear it coming after it hit. It took some time for someone to determine why, the device was flying faster than sound. Before the night was over, London was hit by 30 more of the bombs. Unlike the German bombing raids, these did not stop when the sun rose. They were launched from mobile launchers, not from easy to hit stationary air bases. The rockets were moved on trucks that could be hidden each day and driven to the sites at night. They were delivered directly from the factory to the launch site, the launcher and the fuel for the rocket were timed to meet at a site with three rockets, and the rockets were fired. The launcher moved to the next meeting place, where it met three more rockets and their fuel. Most days a launcher would fire two or three times. There were dozens of the launchers.
The American air force was put on alert. It was somewhere between very difficult and impossible to hit the rockets with anti-aircraft fire, the best defense against them was to keep them from being launched. If they could kill the launchers, they could stop the destruction.
Within several days the job was assigned to several groups of planes. Each group consisted of eight fighters, six tankers and four B-17's. The game plan was to spread the planes out over the area of the suspected launches. When one was sighted, they would call in one of the bombers to hit the launchers and the other supply trucks. The P-47's would machine gun the area if the bombers could not get there in time.
Over the next few weeks they were able to reduce the number of launches to less than five a day, but in the meantime the Germans were able to increase the range of the rocket, increasing the area that had to be patrolled. Worse yet, they changed the tactics, only one rocket was launched from a site. The trucks were ready to move before the launch. This reduced the number of rockets fired by a launcher, but unless the planes were extremely lucky, they found an empty field. The launches continued and even began to increase slightly. The bombings became a thing Englanders had to get used to.
Of the twelve of the Harrisburg class boats completed by mid-1945, three were lost in Japanese waters near the end of the year. The Japanese had developed a high frequency radar in the one and one quarter meter band that could detect a snorkel at ten miles. This may have gone without notice and the losses would have continued had it not been for some very good interpretation of pictures taken of a Japanese bomber. The Japanese were known to have radar, but unlike the microwave radar the US had developed, it was in the two meter band at about 150 Megacycles. The submarines had a receiver to scan this band, if a signal got too strong they would dive. The two meter radar couldn't detect the snorkel unless it was within two miles and the antenna was too big to be carried by aircraft. A picture of a Japanese patrol bomber showed an antenna the photo interpreter didn't recognize. He noted it and had it reviewed by an electronics expert. The answer came back, this was some kind of radio antenna. The interpreter was a ham operator and had some knowledge of radio. He measured the antenna and included in his report that the Japanese planes might be communicating on the one and a quarter meter band. This caused quite a level of concern because the 450 radios in the three quarter meter band might not be safe if the Japanese had developed communications above the two meter band.
Within a week the B-17SA's flying over Japan had a new task. Two new radios were installed, they continually scanned the frequencies from 150 to 550. Both had alarms to alert the crew if any signals were detected. The crew would record the frequency and listen to the traffic to determine the origin. The first flight out found traffic in the three quarter meter band as expected. It was not any kind of voice transmission, it was pulses, most likely a radar set.
The Erie sailed from Midway to the home islands with the Salem as an escort. Three extra radio men were added to the crew and a series of scanning receivers were added in a small room off the radio room. They were connected to a trio of antennas that were placed on the periscope. These receivers could scan wide ranges of frequencies and find signals. The three units would give better coverage.
Just after they cleared port Captain Kane addressed the men. "We are going into Japanese waters. We will patrol the areas in which two boats were lost during the last four months. The brass believes the enemy has developed a new radar that can find us. We're going to try to find it and determine how good it really is. I don't have to tell you, we're tempting the enemy to come after us. But I promise you, I'll do everything to make sure we get back to Pearl with the information."
It was 0300, they were off Hiroshima, running submerged on diesel, the Salem was about five miles away running silent and submerged. Jack Vandy was monitoring the radar receivers. There was a spike in the one screen. He looked up and there was another on the same frequency. It was at 223 Megacycles, right in the one and a quarter meter band where he expected. He checked the strength, S3. He checked the other two receivers, one showed a strength of S2, the other S1. No echo could be expected yet. He called the control room.
"Radar active on one and a quarter meters, 223 megacycles, bearing 120 approx. Strength S3, no possibility of detection yet."
Captain Kane motioned a thumbs up on the scope. He scanned the sky then he saw it, a plane at about five miles, moving on an oblique course. It would come closer before passing but would not pass over them. As he located the plane he heard the report from the radio room, "Radar strength S5, bearing 110, detection unlikely."
Mike Harmon the exec had picked up the hydrophone. "Erie to Salem, Over."
"Salem here."
"Please record this transmission, over."
"Roger."
"Have radar operating in the one and a quarter meter band, 223 megacycles, strength S3, with aircraft at the same bearing. No apparent detection at S5. Over."
"Roger."
Just as the 450 receiver squelched down the radio room called again, "Radar active, 223, bearing 100 strength S7, detection likely." As the radio man finished Kane called out, "Notify Salem, aircraft turning toward us, apparent detection at S7."
As the exec relayed the message Kane called out, "Secure diesels, take her down to 150, make course 330, all ahead full." Within seconds the noise of the diesels ceased and the crew could feel the change in heading and depth. About ninety seconds later a depth charge exploded well behind them.
Kane looked at his exec, "Round 1."
They ran silent for about ten minutes, then came to periscope depth. When they pushed up the antenna they could detect the signal on 223 at S1. They couldn't get a bearing. The signal continued for several minutes then began to increase in strength. The previous pattern was repeated, they got detection at about S7 again and were able to avoid the depth charge.
They were ready to try again.
This time the radio room reported two aircraft, the second operating at 221 megacycles. This time both aircraft turned at about the same time to make their run. Kane called out the dive and turn as before. The two submarines would now go deep and leave the area. They had accumulated the information they needed. The Japanese had a short range one and a quarter meter aircraft radar that could detect a snorkeling submarine at about three miles. Detection did not occur till the target saw a signal strength of S6 or S7.
Just as the Erie leveled at 150 feet there was a tremendous explosion. It was a depth charge, at very close range. Had the range been fifty feet less, the Erie wouldn't have survived the blast. The submarine convulsed as the energy rung through it. Light bulbs smashed, leaks developed, equipment shorted, men fell to the deck.
Kane pulled himself from the deck, his head hurt but he had to determine the condition of his boat. "Right full rudder, come up to 100 feet, compartments report damage," he called.
The reports came in and they were not good. All of the individual reports were for manageable damage except one, but together they were sailing a very sick boat. There was work to do. The worst damage was such that they may have to scuttle the boat. The snorkel trunk was flooded, they couldn't run the diesels while under water. Without surfacing, their range was now limited to what they could cover with the energy in the batteries and the air in the boat. Surfacing here was unthinkable.
Damage control was begun. An order was given to secure all but essential electrical use. One of the axioms of the sea is that anything broken on a damaged boat is repaired until there is no way to save her. Her men continued to make repairs to every compartment while knowing that she may be scuttled in the next few hours. Such is the men who sail under the sea.
They were able to avoid the aircraft and after a while it flew away. Now came the critical decision. They could surface, transfer to the Salem and scuttle the Erie. Kane called his officers together, could they save their boat?
The decision was made, they would sail her to the limit of her batteries, if they couldn't surface by then to make repairs they would then abandon and scuttle her. To get the maximum range they could travel no faster than twelve knots. They spent the next twenty four hours getting as far as possible from land. Just after the moon set they surfaced.
The chief of the boat and several men went on the deck to look at the damage while the gun crews stood by. As soon as they were on the surface the diesels were started to ventilate the boat and they begin charging batteries and air banks. They didn't expect the Japanese to allow them the luxury of charging on the surface for very long but they would take advantage of anything that was afforded. Just an hour of venting the boat, building a little compressed air and cramming some amps in the battery might just give them a few more miles and maybe another day. Maybe they could save the boat. The leak in the trunk was found and the chief began welding the patch in place.
The lookout on the periscope sheers called, "Ship bearing 095." A Japanese destroyer was headed toward them at full speed. With only twenty minutes of charging time the batteries were still not sufficiently charged to operate under water for long, certainly they couldn't survive a determined attack by a destroyer.
Captain Kane called, "Surface action, Gun and torpedo." The chief continued his work as if nothing else was happening. Their ultimate survival depended on his completing his work. He would continue to weld, the others would have to buy him some time.
The destroyer was allowed to come within eight inch range. The first three shots were off but the next six hit the destroyer, setting it on fire and stopping it. The gun crew continued to fire until an explosion ripped the destroyer. They had expended twenty two rounds. It was likely that the destroyer had alerted his base. If he had, help would be on the way and the Erie must be clear of the area if she were to survive.
It took twenty more minutes before the chief proclaimed the repair completed. The Erie cleared the deck and submerged. The return to Pearl was uneventful but the information they carried caused an additional receiver to be added to the Harrisburg and Peoria class boats. No additional boats were lost in this manner.
The scientists at Los Almos had finally produced an improved design of the gun bomb that weighed one half the weight of the first test unit. The current version of the implosion bomb that was tested on the desert was slightly lighter. Unfortunately, no plane in existence except the experimental XB-29 could carry either bomb. And the XB-29 project had been put on hold to allow the improvement of the B-17 to continue. It could not be made ready to fly for at least a year. The B-17SA, nine generations after the B-17J that Dolittle and his men flew on the Japan reconnaissance flights was now being used for those flights. When the short-lived R model came out someone noticed that there were only eight more model letters available, hence the next variant was the SA. Few of the pre-J variants even existed, most had been shot down or scrapped as they were replaced by the newer models. Someone at Boeing who kept track of the materials used in the planes was convinced that some of the aluminum used in the recent versions had been in planes in two earlier versions. The aluminum had already flown over Germany as part of another plane. The Luftwaffle now had two operational jet fighters, but they were available only in very limited numbers. They could have been a problem for the B-17SA's had they been made in greater quantities but the German industry was unable to produce them at a rate of more than ten a month and they were so unstable that more were destroyed in operational accidents than actual battle.
Hitler's sky mines had also been a failure, being unable to be placed at a height that would threaten the B-17. Only the longest range guns could reach them and this risk could be reduced by not flying directly over the actual gun site. At the extreme vertical range, the guns could engage targets that were very nearly overhead but if they weren't directly overhead, their range was inadequate to be effective. There had been much concern about bombing from the extremely high altitudes, primarily concerns with accuracy. As time went on, the men doing the bombing became more proficient with the regular crews having better bombing scores than the elite of just a few years ago. Some of this was the improvements in the Nordon bomb sight, some the improvements to the B-17 that made it a more stable platform, and even some to the reduction in distractions during bombing brought by a reduction in fighter and flack threats. But the big change was the maturity of the crews. Many of them were in their third tour of twenty eight missions. Three years ago it was unlikely that anyone would finish a single tour. Now, flying bombers over Germany was less risky than flying supplies over the Atlantic.
The Los Almos scientists finally decided to concentrate on the bomb design called implosion. It showed promise that the bomb could be smaller, but still not capable of being carried in a B-17SA. More work would have to be done but placing the primary focus on one technology would speed its development, unless it was a dead end. A small team was left to work on the gun bomb, just in case.
The recon flights over Japan had continued, with a few flights carrying bombs for very special targets. The Japanese reacted by placing long range anti-aircraft guns near sites that were sensitive but only two of the planes were ever lost to these. Several were lost to mechanical failures but in most cases the crews were rescued by submarines. The overflight of the island of Japan was a relatively safe post.
Bob Plank and Colonel Dolittle were no longer commanders of the Japan overflights. Both had been rotated back to the states for rest. All of the other crews had seen similar rotations and the unit now contained only a very few ground crews who had been there at the beginning. Sergeant Jack Rinehart was one of the very few left. He had come with the original group, had been injured in an accident and returned to the states. After his recovery he was assigned to Colorado and spent time there in a training command before being returned to Midway. When he arrived he recognized few of the crews. In fact, the only crews he recognized were those who were very new when he left Midway. Questions about the whereabouts of the older crews were all answered in the same way. They were transferred. One crew at a time, they were transferred to various other commands in every part of the world. It was almost like they were being separated. Finally one evening a replacement named Fred Wilson came in from Olmsted AFB in Pennsylvania. He had been a radio specialist there and was transferred to Midway to replace a man who had been returned to the states on a hardship transfer. Jack had been asked to show the newcomer around. As they walked through the hangers Jack remarked that he had been crew chief for Bob Plank for several months and asked if Fred knew him. "Captain Bob Plank, sure I met him at Olmsted. He's one heck of a man. Come to think of it I flew west with another guy who was stationed here about a year ago, Bart Tyson."
"They were both transferred to Olmsted about six months ago. Weren't you there?"
"I was in Olmsted for a year. His plane was officially on the roster there but I never saw him there but once about six months ago and then again when I transferred. He flew in, was serviced and flew out both times. I flew west in Tyson's plane to Colorado. Picked up a dog food flight from there to the coast then rode in on a brand new B-17SA."
"He's supposed to be stationed at Olmsted too. Wonder what he's doing in Colorado?"
"The plane he's flying is a B-17SF, I know that. I never saw one before."
"What's it like?"
"Like an SA, only it has a bigger bomb bay and larger engines. The wing is stretched a little. You wouldn't believe the speed, I timed the flight to Colorado. An SA going flat out would have taken longer and this thing wasn't even laboring. They honestly wouldn't let me look at the air speed or altimeter in flight but the top on it was higher than I've ever seen before. There was a really big blue practice bomb in the bay, we apparently were just transporting it."
"Why would they tell us they were in Olmsted if they were going somewhere else?"
The question went unanswered.
A few days later Jack was doing a wing inspection when Fred came up.
"Want to know something. Bob Plank and his crew weren't the only ones transferred to somewhere and then disappeared. I found two other crews that were shipped somewhere then they both flew to Colorado and disappeared. One bomber was sent to a fighter base for three weeks, supposedly to teach fighter pilots to work with bombers. Then poof, they were gone. They were still officially on the roster there, but they were always somewhere else." He continued, "Now I got this real big mystery. See the two new planes that just came in?" He pointed to two planes that had landed the night before.
"Yea, what about them?" "I worked on one of them this morning, the one ARC-522 radio went out in flight, the long distance CW set on 30 to 50 meters. They have two because of the long flights. The 807 in the final was bad, I replaced it. Guess what? When I signed the log on the radio, I noticed my initials were on the log before. At Olmsted. Checked the problem. It was a bad crystal socket on the unit - didn't have one for the 522 in stock, it uses a phenolic, I had to put in a ceramic. Made a note to that effect. I checked, it's the same radio."
"So what?"
"The guy flying the plane when I fixed it was Bob Plank. When he came to Olmsted. His name is on the maintenance record. That was his plane." "Are you sure they didn't move the radio to a different plane?"
"No, I checked the log, it's the same plane, I signed off that log too."
"So they gave the plane to some other pilot, Plank got an "SF" model."
"I asked the pilot if he knew Plank. He told me he overheard Plank and his copilot talk about going to New Mexico when he picked up the plane but when they saw him, they stopped talking."
"Apparently he must be on some kind of very special mission."
"Here's another mystery, ever see a log that had maintenance work done and nobody signed off on it?"
"No, that's against Army rules."
"Well that log has a while bunch of entries, they have no location and no sign off, just two x's, nobody did them and they weren't done anywhere. What do you think that means?"
"I think that plane was somewhere that is so secret we aren't to know about it."
"For sure, and one thing I know, the pilot who signed off for the work was Plank. Wherever base X is and where maintenance man X is, Plank was there, and more than once. It looks like he was stationed there when he was to be at Olmsted."
The new B-17SF's were a dream come true. In every way they out performed the previous models. The directions for the flight profiles they were to fly were specific. The crews practiced again and again, every aspect of the flight must be perfect.
They would drop the bomb, then go into a tight turn in a slight dive. Radar would measure the distance to the plane at the time of the explosion. Every burst was an air burst, with the bomb going off high enough to do little damage on the ground. Bob didn't understand it. Why have a bomb go off where it wouldn't hurt the ground? He shrugged, they would tell him when he was to know. They were concerned about the distance from the bomb to the plane and the bomb to the ground. Bob couldn't understand why, even the largest bomb was far enough away that they hardly knew it had gone off, even the bomb that was fully loaded with explosive.
The bomber force had been stable for a year now, for one year they had trained and none of them had been transferred. Only six new crews had been brought in, all to replace crews that had been killed in accidents. And all of the replacements were senior crews. Nobody had ever seen such an elite unit of experienced men. This not only included the pilots but the remainder of the crews including the ground and support crews. It was as thought they were isolated from the rest of the Army.
The crews were called together, they would be making a special flight this week. They would fly to Oregon and pick up new planes, the B-17SG. The tanker pilots would get the KC-17SG's. They would leave their B-17SF's at the plant. The maintenance people spent most of the week clearing up all maintenance on the planes and re-writing the records to reflect the planes being anywhere but where they were. Fictitious pilots signed and back-dated the records. The originals were stored on the base, they would be destroyed later. The level of secrecy had just gone up. For now, the bases in New Mexico could not exist and the pilots could not exist, even on the maintenance record of an aircraft.
The planes were exchanged and the crews were given two weeks to learn the new planes and shake out the bugs. Then the orders were cut. The planes would proceed to Midway.
The new force with the B-17SG's arrived at Midway. Within a week they flew a bombing raid over the islands dropping small incendiaries. The raid was opposed by new fighters that climbed up to intercept them. These new fighters had appeared late in July, they were able to climb to the altitude to challenge the B-17SF but couldn't sustain the altitude. They would get off one gun burst and then fall away. They did no damage to the bombers, all returned to their base safely. The bombers were able to shoot down several of them.
During the next week three Peoria class submarines docked briefly at Midway and off-loaded some cargo under strict security. It was obvious that they were bombs because they were moved to a special bomb storage area away from the airstrip. One of the MP's was amazed at the amount of security needed for so small an amount of ordinance. They were big, but he had seen larger bombs. The men who were handling them had come with them on the submarine and they were almost coddling them. They must be special.
Vic Weaver was still flying a Cataltina but it was based on Midway and he was no longer just the pilot of one plane, he was the squadron leader of the Catalinas based on Midway. He was now a Major, much older and wiser. For over two years he had been fishing pilots out of the ocean. His plane was called number sixteen, it was the sixteenth Catalina he had flown, the other fifteen were now scrap. The first one was turned into scrap on a return trip from the battle zone on the first day of the war. Each of the others were lost on a mission in which lives were saved by Vic's risking his own life and the life of the crew. Each one of them was a volunteer for every mission, Weaver gave each of his a crew veto power on a risky pickup. Each time they all voted to go, each time lives were saved. Some times the price of those lives was a Catalina. Seven times Vic and his crew damaged a Catalina so badly on landing that it had to be abandoned at sea, but each time they were able to keep it afloat till help came or get out the rafts and survival gear and effect the temporary rescue, preserving lives till another plane, surface ship or submarine could make the pickup. Each time this happened Vic and his crew would receive reprimands for the loss of the aircraft and after a discrete interval, commendations for the action. Generally, together and individually they had broken enough Navy rules to be courts marshaled but somehow the paperwork to do so got lost and the commendations came through after everyone had time to forget the infractions.
Everyone in the bomber crews knew Vic and number 16, as they told it, his was the plane that they would see over a downing, seemingly no matter how far out. If the weather was too bad, the seas too rough and the distance too long for the fuel capacity of the Catalina, and one showed up, it was certain that Vic would be the one making the water landing. Someone once asked why he never gave these to the other members of the squadron and he replied, "Never ask someone else to do what you can't do yourself. If I thought someone else could do it better, they would get the nod" It was that simple, Vic would sooner take the risk than ask someone else to do it and he was good, he had done more water landings than the next two pilots in his squadron.
At 0800 on September 27 the tower received a message from an inbound B-17, it and a fuel plane had been involved in a mid-air, both were damaged, neither could make it home, both would be ditching soon. They would be ditching together, there were injured on board. They checked the range, it was all too far for a Catalina to go out and come back. There were no other ships or planes in the area, and someone had to go. Vic called the other duty pilot aside and talked with him for some time, then he called his crew together, they discussed the mission and the started the modified takeoff checklist. This was the list that allowed them to take off in half the time needed to do the full list. Of course, a few corners were cut, a few things went unchecked, but they were off and headed to the site. The other pilot, Dave Cormany also went to his plane and started the full checklist. He would take off nearly forty minutes after Vic.
The outbound flight took over three hours, Vic purposefully set the throttles at a high setting to save time knowing full well that they were burning fuel they would need to make the return trip. But then, no matter how they set the throttles there would not be enough fuel to return, it was better to get there quick. As ordered by Vic, Dave set his throttles at the most economical cruise levels, he could remain in the air longer but cover less distance. He would meet Vic on the return trip or be there to pick him up if he had problems landing on the water or taking off. If Cormany found Vic at the ditching site, he too would not have enough fuel to return.
Vic arrived over the ditching site, found the crew of the B-17s in rafts and made his landing. The men were transferred to the Catalina and Vic made his takeoff run. In the air he and Jack Doutrick made calculations, the best they could do is one half the distance to Midway. It was as they expected. In the back the corpsman was treating the injured, one man was talking, he was delirious, and screaming about them all being doomed and some horrible bomb. He was talking about things that scared every member of the crew. The members of the B-17 crew tried to quiet him, but to no avail.
Vic and Jack had more serious things to consider, they were rapidly running out of fuel and there was no chance of making Midway. A call on the radio raised Dave in the other Catalina. He was headed toward them. His fuel status was good news, if they could land and transfer fuel, the two planes could make it back to Midway.
A half hour later two Catalinas were next to each other on the water. Vic threw a line to the other plane and they tied them together. Next he threw over a hose and they started to transfer fuel. They finished and were about to take off when Dave called on the radio. His left engine would not start. The solution was simple, they transferred some additional fuel, Cormany and his crew transferred to Vic's Catalina and they took off after pulling the drain plugs in the bilge of Dave's Catalina.
Just after the take off the pilot of the B-17 asked to talk to Vic. The two crews of the Catalinas had heard too much from the B-17 crew, there was a serious security problem and he saw only one way to resolve it. Vic would land at the special B-17 base. Someone there would have to determine what to do. Vic asked the pilot his name, he replied, "Tibbits, Colonel Paul Tibbits."
Arrangements were made on the radio to have them land, the Catalina was parked and the men taken to what really was a detention area. Within six hours they were all on a plane to New Mexico. Vic, the Navy's most decorated Catalina and Air Sea Rescue pilot was now assigned to an army base in the middle of the desert. All were assured their stay there was absolutely necessary and it would hopefully be short. The men were only told that they could not be allowed to be captured by the enemy.
The force of one hundred and three planes took off and headed west, fifteen bombers, eighteen guard planes and seventy tankers. The fifteen bombers each carried one bomb and had been stripped of all possible weight including all guns except the tail gun. Even it had only a minimal number of rounds of ammunition, such was the bomb load they were carrying. Each bomber would be accompanied to the target by a guard plane, a B17-VG that had not been stripped of it's guns but was carrying no bomb. One of these planes would fly in formation with the bomber and provide protection. Such was the nature of the mission that the orders for the guard planes stated that they would remain on station with the bomber even if the result would be the loss of the guard aircraft and its crew. There were three extra guard planes and four extra tankers, these would replace any planes that fell out because of mechanical problems.
Captain Osaka of the I-211 pushed the periscope through the surface of the ocean and took a very quick look around. He had now spent three days of surfacing in the dead of night to charge his batteries and watching the islands through the periscope during the day. He and his men were just about at the end of their wits. Four subs sent to monitor the activities at Midway in the last six weeks were all overdue and presumed lost. His orders were to find out what was happening and come home with the information. He was not to risk his boat in any offensive action.
The days had been hard. There were many surface targets and he longed to sink them but every time he raised his periscope for more than ten minutes he found himself being attacked by aircraft. There had been some close calls and the boat already had several compartments which were leaking. He had already decided to withdraw that night. Whatever was happening, the Americans wanted it to be a secret.
As he made his sweep he saw a massive flight of aircraft-he recognized them as B-17's-taking off and heading west. He knew the dreaded planes would be flying over the homeland. Although they almost never dropped bombs it was well known that after flights over coastal cities the dreaded rocket boats often came and burned the city. He dropped below the waves and prepared a radio message. It gave course, direction and number of planes in the formation and briefly what they had learned about the Midway defenses. He didn't expect to return to Japan after sending the message, his transmission would lead the enemy to him. He and his crew would most likely not survive the next attack.
He passed this information to the men, then they raised the antenna as high as possible without surfacing and the message was sent. They waited for a confirmation and then went deep. The expected attack never came. Somehow the strict security that shrouded Midway at that critical time failed.
On board the Boston Captain Bowders and Executive Officer Jack Johnson took another star sight, this may be the last one of the night and this one must be accurate. For the last six hours they had each taken a star sight every ten minutes, the sights were compared, if they were not the same they were repeated. The information was passed to the men in the radio room. Each time the information was compared with the position computed by taking the last position and offsetting it with the course and speed of the Boston. In addition the radio operators were comparing the position with that computed by radio fixes from several broadcast stations. Each time a new position was computed dials were turned on the front of the unit. In addition, one of the radio operators had been making regular checks to synchronize the clock on the device with time pulse from Pearl. Clearly someone wanted the Boston to know where she was and have the accurate time.
The reason for all of this was currently in the air aboard each of the aircraft flying toward Japan, a radio receiver that measured the time between pulses sent from the various submarines and allowed the bombers to locate their positions accurately and know the exact time of day. These were essential to the success of the mission. None of the equipment on the aircraft was redundant as there would be at least two planes flying to each site.
The radio operator decoded the message and hand-carried it directly to the senior radio officer. He took the message to the duty officer without any delay. It was a report from the I-211 of a large formation of B-17's headed toward the homeland. They now had several hours to prepare for them, usually the warning came only when the planes were much closer. The air officer was elated at the report. This time they would meet the American bombers in force. Several dozen of the new high altitude fighters were available to him. He checked the path of the planes for Japanese Naval forces. All ships to the east were alerted to watch for B-17's and report immediately the course and number. This was all he could do for now, he would wait for reports.
The first refueling took place when the first set of tankers could transfer all fuel except what they would need to return. Likewise the second tanking would be carried out when the remaining tankers had only sufficient fuel to return. The second tanking complete, the force was on its own.
Meanwhile a third set of tankers took off and headed east. They were guided by submarines that were tracking the bombers. These would meet the force on its way out and refuel the planes. A forth set of tankers would take off in time to meet the third set and the attack group to provide enough fuel to return to Midway.
Before they reached the point of no return a full check of each plane was made. Guard 12 had an electrical failure in the top gun turret. Unless the crew could repair it, this would render it less than fully effective for its mission. Guard 16 was assigned to accompany Bomber 12. Gary Worth, the pilot of Guard 12 protested. They should not return to Midway, they should continue with the flight, except for the reduced firepower they were a functioning unit. After all, there was little likelihood of an attack from above. Any other failure might render another Guard less effective, making Guard 12 the best equipped to fly the mission as the top turret was rarely fired in the high altitude runs. Dolittle agreed, the extra plane would enhance the chances of success. The extra guard plane would stay with the force, it would accompany Bomber 12 if no other Guard plane was ineffective. The gunner and navigators on Guard 12 checked out the circuits and could not find the problem, They began transferring the ammunition from the non-functioning turret to the others.
The remaining unassigned aircraft, Guard 17 was assigned to fly with the two planes designated to hit Tokyo. These would fly together until a few minutes before the drop. This would provide more protection for that force.
The reports of the progress of the American B-17's were coming in. Early reports showed only one large force, later ones showed it to be splitting into smaller groups heading in slightly different directions. The air officer began to plot intercepts for the fighters. The high altitude aircraft were of German design and could only be fueled twenty minutes before takeoff. They had less then a half hour flying time and only a few minutes of that could be at high altitude. If they were to make successful intercepts the timing must be just right. Finally orders were sent out to the bases with the times to begin the fueling and the takeoff times. These flights were know to generally be recon-rarely did they bomb and even then the loads were pathetic but they provided the Americans with information. They were only addressed to keep the Americans from becoming comfortable, and from being able to gain more intelligence. They all knew the recon flights were nearly always followed by submarine assaults, either to shipping or to the land bases. They couldn't go unpunished.
In Bomber 1 Dolittle checked the time and asked the navigator for their position for the hundredth time. They and guard 1 were alone in the sky, the formation was now broken into pairs of planes. The position report was significant, they would be within fighter range in the next ten minutes. During the long run to Japan the bombers flew at a very efficient altitude of about twenty thousand feet. Now they began their hard climb to overflight altitude. The message went out to Guard 1 to climb with them and move into position to screen the bomber. Guard 1 immediately dropped off their wing and took the position just below and behind the bomber. In Guard 1 Bob Wagner relayed the message to his crew. "Heads up, now we get to earn our keep. Don't let them slip up on us. Remember, we're staying a little lower to make us the prime target."
Bomber 1 was now less than a half hour from target. A small island passed under them, a confirmation of their position. The navigator reported that they were 11 seconds late. With the announcement of that fact the navigator made some calculations and Dolittle increased the speed a few knots. They must be over the targets on time and drop the bombs so that all of the bombs were dropped within thirty seconds.
The copilot began the checklist. "Goggles ready, check." he called to the crew, then passed the message to Guard 1. All of the crew responded affirmatively. The same things were going on in the other 31 planes.
As Bomber 12 approached Nagoya the two guard planes decided to both fly below the bomber, the one with the bad turret nearly directly under it and the other about 300 yards behind. Just as the pilots reported they could see land the gunner spotted six fighters at 6 o'clock and climbing toward them. All had seen fighters before but never had they seen six climbing to intercept at one time. The warning had provided the Japanese with an opportunity that had never been afforded them before, they were ready for the flight. When the first fighter came into range the trailing guard plane opened up with both turrets. A few seconds later the other guard plane opened up too. Each turret had expended less than ten rounds when a explosion rocked the fighter and it was replaced by a large dirty fireball. The two fighters following it flew into the debris and both cartwheeled toward the earth. Three fighters down, three remained but there was no cause for joy as the gunner reported seeing several more well below them. The next three closed and each was destroyed before they could get within range with the smaller caliber guns they carried.
The remaining fighters were now climbing at full power. All but one of these was dispatched without returning fire. That last fighter managed to climb and get within range before he was cut down. He cut loose one burst of fire and then fell away smoking as a shell found his engine. Although he was cut down quickly, two of his shells hit the lead guard plane. The damage was minor in all ways but one. A crossover fuel pump was damaged and they would be unable to pull fuel from one wing to the other. The engines on that wing could burn the fuel, but they could not transfer the fuel to the other wing. If they had engine failures on that wing the plane may not make the refueling point.
For the next twenty minutes one fighter after another climbed and all but a few were shot down on the first pass. Many of the gunners made ace, one was credited with nine planes. With ten minutes to the drop it was obvious to everyone, the Guard planes could not pull away from the bomber at two minutes before the drop as planned without endangering the success of the mission. There were too many fighters and they were still coming up to attack. The guard pilots conferred with the pilot of Bomber 12 and they agreed on a solution. Five seconds before the drop the two guard planes would do the 160 turn, the same as the bomber would do after the release. The bomber would follow as soon as the bomb was released. Although this would place the guard planes closer to the blast than planned, they should be able to survive it with the bomber as they would be further from the blast. As soon as the blast passed the guards, they would climb and slow slightly, the bomber would climb past them and the guards would take up station to protect it during withdraw.
The copilot continued with the checklist. "Goggles on. Don't remove them till notified, 30 seconds to drop." The gunner acknowledged the order just as he saw the threat. Four fighters were closing and he must see to fire. He waited, counting out seconds, then opened fire, he should have time to put the goggles on after the drop. The planes were dispatched and the gunner pulled on his goggles just as the plane made a steep turn. No fighters remained within range of the bomber. He had done his job. Through his headphones he heard the countdown as it proceeded toward zero, the time the bomb would explode. At a count of 1 he saw a flash of light through his goggles. "The count must have been one off," he thought but before he could react there were four more flashes, one much brighter than the others. Even through the goggles it was almost like seeing flash bulbs going off.
"Goggles off," he heard after a few more seconds. He removed them and looked out to have his eyes assaulted by two more flashes. Seven of the bombs had been close enough for them to see the flashes and all had exploded within eight seconds.
With his goggles off, Gary saw the threat, a pair of fighters climbing toward them. "Fighters, six o'clock low skipper, better get her back upstairs and behind the bomber. We still got some work to do." The pilot had already found the bomber and was moving to retake the position.
"That's a roger," came the response. Within seconds the bomber was above them again.
Gary saw it first, a movement of the air that was so dense that it was visible. "Look out skipper, we're going to get hit."
In the next twenty seconds the plane was buffeted so badly that they were not sure it would survive. Had they not been busy with things bouncing around the plane they would have seen six of the Japanese fighters caught in the same mass of moving air. These planes were not nearly so solidly built as the B-17 and were much less stable in the air. Only one survived. It was so badly damaged the pilot was not sure he could keep it in the air. The departing B-17's were the least of his concerns.
The buffeting was intense, his plane was flying but badly damaged. He tried to climb toward the bomber but the engine wasn't running properly and the plane would not climb. It was shaking and he was not sure it would continue flying. The tower didn't respond to his call for help, he thought maybe his radio was out. He flew to the airport, hoping to land before the plane ceased flying, but the tower was gone and the runway was littered with burning planes and pieces of hanger. As he buzzed the airport for the second time to look for a place to land he saw that the area of the town where he and his family lived was burning. He wondered how one plane could do such damage. The column of smoke that rose from the city looked like a mushroom. "Would his wife and baby be alive?" he wondered. After two more circles and a pass over an alternate field that was also badly damaged, he flew over the area where his family lived and parachuted to the ground. The Army found his body next to that of his wife and baby several days later. They were killed by the collapse of their home, he by his own sword. He had failed to protect his home, the only honorable act was suicide.
Nagoya had a large round scar in it, its center just about two hundred yards north of the aiming point, a good job of bombing from high altitude. Nearly 150,000 of its people were dead and well over a hundred thousand would die from the fires and injuries within the next few days. A quarter of its population would be gone along with well over half of the houses, schools and industry. Not one hospital survived. The bomb had exploded about a half mile from the airport. It was totally destroyed, help couldn't be expected from that quarter. Most of the rail lines into the city were destroyed. Had Nagoya been the only city attacked, Japan would have suffered a disaster but help could have come from other cities. Unfortunately this was not the case. In those terrible thirty seconds, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagisaki, and ten other cities had also felt the heat of atomic fire.
Bombers 14 and 15 turned on their final heading of 330 -- right up Tokyo Bay. They had passed their checkpoints on time. In ten minutes they would drop their bombs and head for home. Fighters kept coming up to assault them, usually in pairs and threes. The three guard planes kept knocking them down like ducks in a shooting gallery. As with other planes it became evident that leaving two minutes before the drop would expose the bombers to high risk before the drop and for an additional 5 to 7 minutes after the drop. The three guard pilots reported that they would be staying with the bombers, all the way. Guard 17 would fly with Bomber 15 when the two planes parted for the drop. The guards and bombers would make the turn together. During the conversation the gunners shot down an additional two fighters.
The two bombers each turned three degrees, Bomber 14 to the right, Bomber 15 to the left. They would be far enough from each other when the bombs dropped. The shock wave of one bomb must not hit the other bomb before it went off. The last six minutes of the bombing run was relatively quiet. The fighters left them just before landfall, they had no opposition. The bomber crews had no way of knowing that flying over Tokyo was as safe as flying over Washington DC for an American plane. The defending pilots had orders to avoid engagement over the city. The aiming of the bombs began. The two planes coordinated the drop so that both released within 3 seconds and when the "bombs away" was called the five planes went into their diving turns. Unlike the other cities, the very center of Tokyo was spared. The bombs exploded about eight miles apart, the east and west quarters of Tokyo were hard hit, the center, north and south were damaged but spared complete devastation.
Only three crews were able to see their handiwork after the raid. The twelve others all flew out to sea and homeward without taking a look. None of the planes had enough fuel to fly back over the city they had bombed to check the results. Dolittle and his crew ended their run to the east and passed Kokura on the return trip. The damage was obvious even at the altitude. Fires burned all over the town. No massive raid on a town had ever created such carnage. Two other crews had a similar view of other towns.
Each plane had sent two messages, one when the bomb was dropped, one when it exploded. These were picked up by the submarines and the Peoria relayed the messages to Midway. The plane radios were marginal over these ranges and the brass at Midway wanted to be sure the messages got through. The three planes that overflew the islands after the raids took some pictures and headed home.
Less than two hours after the raid five recon planes made landfall and began their sweeps of the devastated cities. The fires were still obvious. So striking was the disaster that three of the planes sent off radio messages about it. The wording of one was as follows, "Tokyo has two large circular areas on fire, together they cover over half of the city. It looks almost like a big figure eight burned in it." Several of the planes met with light opposition but all would make it home. The fighters that made it up to oppose them were from small fields away from the major cities. None of those at the major cities were unscathed, most were seriously damaged or destroyed. The air officer and his staff as well as the radio operator at naval headquarters were dead. The Japanese navy had lost its headquarters.
The bombers and guard planes were now retreating toward Midway. They would soon meet the first group of tankers, refuel and continue homeward. The plan had called for the guard planes to reduce their weight by dropping all but ten percent of their ammunition when they were about 700 miles off the coast. Most had been in nearly continual combat for most of the overland portion of the flight and none had more than 20 percent of their allotment remaining, several were down to under five percent. There had been such ammunition expenditures that during the later portion of the flight several of the gunners were allowing planes to get closer before opening fire. The planes with the heavier loads dropped the specified amounts. All of the planes made the first tanking with no problems. By the time of the second tanking several of the planes had mechanical problems. One had feathered a runaway engine, another had an engine that was overheating if run at more than 30 percent power. Both would make it to Midway but tension would run high until they landed. The only loss of the day came when one of the last phase tankers had an engine fire about a hundred miles out of Midway and the fire became uncontrollable. The crew jumped but one of the pilots was killed in the jump into the sea. The others were picked up wet but alive. The devastating raid on the Japanese cities claimed one American victim.
Under usual conditions the debriefing after the raid would have been extensive but this time the crews were sent to bed for the remainder of the night. They would tell their stories the next day. By then the photo planes would be back and the pictures would be available to match the crew observations. The attack group had been in their aircraft for nearly 20 hours and the tanker crews nearly fifteen. All were dead tired.
The following morning the crews were called at 0900, served breakfast and then called in for debriefing. All were talking about the end of the war. After the devastation they had seen, Japan must surrender. There could be no possibility of them continuing the fight.
Atomic warfare began on October 27, 1946. In its first thirty seconds it claimed nearly a million lives. Fourteen Japanese cities were ravaged. War had come home to the Japanese and it was expensive. With the level of devastation everyone thought they had seen the last atomic explosion. No country would risk it to continue the war.
Admiral Yammomato was at Truck on the day of the raid. Had he not been there on an inspection tour he would have been in Naval Headquarters at Tokyo. Reports of the raid were sketchy because of the devastation, but there was no doubt about on thing, it was devastating. A few radios survived in the bombed cities and the reports were grave. All attempts to get in touch with fleet headquarters had been unsuccessful. A message from a ship that had been about 20 miles offshore at the time of the raid informed them that what was left of Fleet Headquarters was burning. Yammomato called his staff together.
"The situation in the homeland is grave. Fourteen of our cities were bombed yesterday by planes that dropped only one bomb each. All but the largest cities were destroyed. Tokyo was hit by two planes, well over half of it is gone. The Emperor's palace is gone. Apparently it was an aiming point for one of the bombs. The Americans have desecrated all we hold sacred. Let us make them pay, let us attack their shores. What forces do we have within the area that can be used to hit the mainland of the Americas?"
"Our remaining carrier forces are off the coast of Alaska, we moved them there about six weeks ago. They have been supporting our forces in Alaska and Canada. We are advancing there for the first time in nearly a year. Several submarines are off the California coast and we have a surface force moving south from Juneau that includes the battleships with the eighteen inch rifles. They were to support the other naval forces there and lend fire support to troops near the coast. Our troops on the coast are ready for an assault to the south. Other than what we have here, that is our assets. We can count on nothing that was at the homeland. Much of it was destroyed, the remainder is committed to relief of our own people."
"This should be adequate. Let us attack. Let the forces off Alaska move south along the American coast and shell and bomb whatever is within range. Let us hit their major coastal cities. Our land forces in Canada must attack to the south, they are within 100 miles of the American border, let them push to it and beyond. Let us hit the Americans where it hurts, at home. They have taught the lesson, let us show them we are good students."
"But sir, if we commit those forces we may see them destroyed and for no value."
"And if we don't, what is the alternative? To surrender, to accept their terms? Let us hit their cities and now. Our forces cannot approach Pearl or Midway because of their forces there but they cannot be strong everywhere. Let us hope their west coast is their soft spot. The bombers that punished our land come from factories in their northwest. The American People are tired of the war, if we attack they will clamor for peace. It is our only chance. How much time do we have before they could mount a second raid?"
"By monitoring the recon flights over our country, we believe they cannot mount another raid for two weeks. We have checked the planes, we have counts and numbers. A plane almost never appears twice in a two week period, and never twice within ten days. Apparently the crews and planes are given that much time for servicing and rest. We believe the force that mounted this raid was all the Americans can support. Let us hit them in three days, before they have a chance to mount another raid."
"Is that all sir?"
"No, let's go further. The Americans have violated our homeland, killed our innocent children. They have desecrated the palace of the emperor. Let us balance the tables. Let us make them pay. Order our forces to resume the execution of all civilians in the occupied areas of Alaska and Canada."
"But sir, the Geneva convention forbids this."
"Then order the military to begin burning houses. Let's make their land look like ours. Have you not studied their history? Their own General Sherman burned everything from Memphis to the Atlantic Ocean during their War Between the States, their civil war. Let us learn from him."
"But sir, winter is coming, many will die in the cold."
"Yes, many will die in the cold. Many Japanese have died, many more will die, so many Americans and Canadians will die too."
The planning for the raid was completed. The attacks would be made just before dawn in three days. Contact was made with their German allies, they would make a supporting attack on the East cost of the United States. The German spokesman declined to describe the type of attack.
The planes were flown in from other airports, there were no facilities here to service them. The field was little more than a dirt strip with a few huts, tents and a fuel dump. The fuel was trucked in just the night before. The bombers carried their bombs and ammunition. They were refueled and checked out by their own flight crews. The planes took off just before 0145. The force contained seventy five medium bombers, all the High Command could muster for the raid. They carried maximum bomb loads and just enough fuel to return to the base. Their targets were the residential areas around the aircraft plants in the northwest, the plants that built the B-17. They would hit just before dawn, when people were in their homes.
Captain John Steece could see the movement, he knew something was happening but just what was impossible to determine. Artillery shells began to burst on his front, the heaviest and most concentrated shelling he had seen. His men were in foxholes but they were being hit one at a time. Within ten minutes his force had been reduced by three quarters. The artillery barrage slowly moved back to his rear and then he saw the enemy coming. The massed assault carried his line and overran it. Within an hour of the initial bombardment Captain Steece was dead and his command ceased to exist. Only a handful of the men were able to slip away and evade the Japanese. The ones who tried to surrender were killed.
The Japanese forces that broke through the American line were backed by tanks and mechanized vehicles. These were prepared to move south at full speed, it was like a German Blitzkrieg assault. They were to move as far as possible and destroy whatever was in their path then turn toward the sea and provide a beachhead for the landing force that was preparing to move south. The commander had studied the civil war. When he was given his orders he asked, "Should this be like Sherman's march to the sea?"
His commander nodded his head. Whatever was in their path should be destroyed. When they could move no further south they should move to the coast and wait to be taken off. Yamagucci knew he would most likely not be reinforced, his was a suicide mission. Even if he made it to the sea the reinforcements would probably not come. He vowed that his men would acquit themselves well, their lives wouldn't be sacrificed for nothing. He knew of the bombing, his wife and children were in Nagasaiki, he was sure they were dead.
Carol Fuller was a fourth floor night nurse in Mercy Hospital. She had just administered the medication to a patient and now looked out the window into the dark. When she took the job in June 1941 this was an exciting view, now the blackouts removed the splendor. "Would it ever be the same?" she wondered. Soon the country would have been at war for five years. She thought of the hundred years war, how could people have lived all of their lives at war? To have lived and never have known anything but war. To her it seemed as if that were so, only a blurred memory of peace remained him her mind. Off to her left she saw a series of bright flashes well out to sea. She stood transfixed for nearly a half minute, not sure of what she had seen and waiting to see it again to determine its origin. There it was, another series of flashes from the same place.
The patient in the bed stirred, "What was that?"
"Don't know, I just saw some flashes, way out."
"Where?"
She pointed to the approximate spot of the flashes. Neither could see anything there. They watched for a few seconds, then another series of flashes erupted. "God, That's a heavy warship firing a main battery. I make that a full broadside. I wonder who he's shooting at?"
"You sure?"
"Was on the Arizona before Pearl. Saw a lot of fire at night in training exercises. Few people have ever seen it for real. With our battleships gone I thought I would never see it again. Now you can say you know what it looks like." He smiled as if to include her in a fraternity.
She shivered at the thought, "I hope it's ours."
"So do I but I can't imagine them moving the Atlantic Fleet here and who would they be shelling?" Another series of flashes erupted. "Whoever they're shelling is going to get hit hard. That's a full broadside. Nine shells, over a ton each." His words were hardly out when a series of explosions rocked the city below them. Within seconds they could see fires start. They were both almost paralyzed, then another series of explosions erupted, this time closer.
The patient screamed, "We're being shelled, let's get out of here. To the hall, quick." It took Carol several seconds to react but she followed him to the hall and closed the door as he instructed. She moved toward the next room but before she could get to the door she heard the next explosions followed by screams within the hospital. The shells had not hit the hospital but had landed just short of it. In spite of his protests she ran into the next room. The window was blown in and the room was full of glass. The both patients there were dead, shredded by the flying glass. She checked the next room. The scene was the same but one of the patients was missing. She found him in the bathroom. He had been saved by deciding to go the John at just the right time. There was glass everywhere but the bathroom, she told him to stay till she could come back. Carol worked her way down the hall, stopping at each room. Those on the north side were devastated, only two patients had survived. The patients on the south side were awake but were unhurt. At each door Carol told the ones who could move to come to the hall. She would get help to move the others from their rooms.
In the turrets on the Yamoto the air was filled with the smell of cordite smoke and sweat. The men were loading and firing the main batteries as fast as possible. They were throwing a broadside every 30 seconds, each consisting of 9 projectiles, each weighing over 3500 pounds. With each broadside, over 15 tons of explosives rained down on the city. It was like having two heavy bombers drop their full load every 30 seconds. The Yamato was steaming south at 27 knots, nearly a mile every two minutes, so the broadsides landed nearly 2200 feet apart. The orders from the imperial staff were explicit, steam twelve miles off shore, shell at a range of about 18 miles. Let the shells fall in the city. Target military installations when visible, otherwise, hit the residential areas. The Yamato's sister ship was even now off the coast of Los Angeles shelling that city. Both ships would shell while moving south, turn and shell at a slightly greater range as they retired north. The shelling would end just before 0500, by then the ships would have expended less than a quarter of their ammunition. Both ships were outside the range of cover that could be provided by the aircraft carriers that were even now further north. The carriers would hit Seattle and Portland at dawn, then move southward to join the battleships for a coordinated attack on the north California coast.
At the nurses' station Carol found Sue, the head floor nurse, leaning on the counter and holding a large pad on her arm. Blood dripped from under the pad. Carol moved to help her and Sue screamed, "No, don't touch it. You'll jab the glass in it."
Sue had been standing outside a room when the broadside landed. The window of the room was blown in. A piece of glass about eight inches long and two inches wide had gone through her forearm and was sticking out the other side. It had gone between the bones. It would be hard to convince her of it now but she was luckily only her arm had been hit. Had the glass hit her body, she would be dead or badly wounded. Carol could see that Sue was loosing blood and she needed treatment to prevent the injury from being life-threatening. "You need to lie down and we need to get that bleeding stopped." Sue protested, "I can't move, it hurts."
"Sure it hurts, but you're a nurse, look at you loosing blood. It has to come out, you know what needs to be done."
"But it hurts if I move just a little. Stop it from hurting."
"Let's get you on that gurney over there, that way we can at least keep your arm immobile."
Sue nodded, "OK, but bring it here, I can't move that far."
Carol smiled, nurse were wimps when it came to medical treatment. She moved the gurney next to Sue and helped her on it. Sue held her arm the whole time. Carol was afraid Sue would pass out from loss of blood. She had to get the bleeding stopped. Most of all Carol feared being alone on the floor. A conscious Sue was a security blanket, even if she was injured. With that situation more stable, Carol rang Emergency. Could someone come up for Sue. Could she have some help? The response should have been expected but Carol had closed her mind to what had happened outside her floor. The ER informed her that they had all of the patients they could handle and unless Sue was in immediate danger, she would have to wait. They also told her that unless she actually had injured to care for, there was nobody to spare in the hospital. The ER was swamped with seriously injured, both from inside and outside the hospital. Carol hung up the phone and looked at Sue.
Sue was in pain, every slight move hurt as the glass cut into her flesh. Worse than the pain was the loss of blood that was continuing. Carol carefully pulled the pad back from the gash. As expected, the wound was pulsing. Sue had some arterial bleeding, if it wasn't stopped she could die. A tourniquet above the wound would stop the bleeding but would condemn Sue to loose an arm. Carol had resigned herself, help wouldn't come for quite a while. Sue's care was in her hands.
"Hold still, I've got to get that glass out of there so we can stop the bleeding," Sue began to take charge.
"No way, you're not touching it. Even pulling the pad back to look at it stuck me. I'll wait till they put me out, then they can pull it out."
"Come on Sue, you're a nurse. Look at the amount of blood you're loosing. You know you can't keep doing that for long. The ER says we can't expect any help for soon time. I can't stop the bleeding unless I can apply pressure or I put on a tourniquet. You know as well as I, either I pull out the glass and try to stop it with pressure, or we put on a tourniquet and you loose the arm."
Sue closed her eyes tightly, "God it hurts." After a few seconds she opened them, "If you have to, go ahead and pull it out, let me hold my arm, then do it quick." Sue gripped her left hand with the uninjured right one to hold it steady and almost yelled, "Pull it out, quick before I change my mind." Carol took a towel and grabbed the glass by the wide end and pulled. When it moved, Sue screamed but Carol continued to pull till it was out. The wound started to bleed more profusely. Carol wrapped the arm with a pad, pulled it tight to apply pressure. The bleeding was stopped for now. She pushed the gurney to the desk and placed the phone on the gurney next to Sue. "I'm going down the hall to see if anyone else needs help. Answer this if anyone calls."
She handed Sue a police whistle from around her neck, "Blow this if you need me. Watch that bandage on the arm, if it starts bleeding we'll put on a tourniquet and I'll get you down to emergency. I don't think you're going to get any help right now if I take you down and right now I need you here."
Sue nodded.
Carol grabbed a wheelchair and returned to the hall where she had left the sailor. She helped the guy in the bathroom into the chair and pushed him to nurse's station and checked on Sue. The bleeding hadn't started again but she needed assistance soon, the pain was taking its toll. With that taken care of, Carol now started down the other hall. She checked each room. Again the patients on the north side were all killed, the ones on the south side were shaken but unhurt. She became concerned because she had not been able to find the other two nurses, Angie and Bev. She returned to the nurses station.
"Sue, do you know where Angie and Bev were when.." She could not say it."
They were going down for break, I told them to go together. Bev wasn't feeling well." Carol couldn't leave the floor to look for them. She started to check on the remaining patients. Reverting to her normal activity was a way to isolate herself from the horror. Most of the patients were awake and wondering what had happened. She told them they had been shelled. She decided to begin moving them to the hall but first she must check on Sue. She had no way of knowing that there would be no more shelling, she was protecting them as best she could. As she came past the elevator she heard someone hitting a wooden door. She looked around and could not see anyone but then realized the sound was coming from the restroom. Carol went in. Bev was laying on the floor next to the door and only when she saw Carol did she quit hitting the door. Her legs were in a pool of blood with about a dozen slivers of glass sticking out of each of them. Angie was sitting on a sofa in a pool of blood with large slivers of glass sticking out of her legs. "Thank God you're here," Angie moaned. "Help me. God it hurts when I try to move. It cuts deeper if I do."
"I'll be back," Carol said as she turned and went out the door. She grabbed bandages and supplies, piled them on a tray and pushed it to the door. As she did she yelled to Sue.
"Call downstairs, tell them I have two badly injured nurses, I need help." She pushed the tray into the restroom. If the bleeding wasn't stopped and soon, both women would expire. She had only seen this much blood from massive hemorrhages. Bev screamed as Carol pulled tourniquets under her legs. Carol had no choice, she tightened them and moved on to treat Angie. Even the slightest movement would make the glass cut further. She blinked back the tears, if she didn't stop the bleeding they would die. The only solution was tourniquets. If she put them on and didn't get help soon, both would loose their legs. She went out to Sue and told her of the situation. Sue had been unable to contact anyone. Carol remembered that there were four new admissions for elective surgeries the day before. These may be able to help her. She ran to the nurse's station and pulled charts. All of them were alive, she could tell by room numbers. The sailor was one of them. She grabbed his arm, she handed him the charts, "I need some help, get these guys, bring them to the elevator, and find me two wheelchairs. We got two nurses hurt real bad who need help, in the restroom." He nodded and moved off. She returned to the restroom. At first she wondered how their injuries had been so localized. With a minute to look at the situation she saw they would have been killed, drilled by slivers of glass but for a divider that had stopped it. Only their lower legs were exposed to the blast. Bev was standing, she fell and had crawled to the door to summon help but had been unable to open it.
There was a knock on the door.
"Come in, quick." The sailor pushed one chair. He was followed by another man pushing a second one.
"We need to get them downstairs but we can't move or bend their legs. They're in pain and movement makes the glass cut them more." The men helped her carefully move them to the wheelchairs. They set the leg rests as close as possible to their leg positions so they wouldn't be hurt them but both women cried out when moved. Carol now had a serious decision to make. She was the only functioning nurse on the floor. Sue apparently had several small pieces of glass in her arm, she couldn't stand to have it moved and she was beginning to seem worn by the blood loss and pain. Carol made her decision. She got two of the men, "Help me push them on the elevator, then one of you and I'll take Sue, Bev and Angie downstairs to ER. As soon as I get them help, I'll be back. The other three of you are in charge till I get back.
The ER was a shambles. There were so many injured. Carol had never seen anything like it. A nurse with a blank stare looked at Sue, then Bev and Angie. Sue was given a shot and pushed off to the side. Carol protested. The nurse with the blank stare shook her head, Sue would survive without attention, she would have to wait. The sailor held Sue's hand and talked to her as she cried for the first time. Another nurse came up and started an IV in Sue's right arm. The nurse looked at Angie, then at Bev. They were pushed to the front of a line in the middle of the hall. The nurse who was starting IV's came over to attend to them. They had been there less than five minutes when a doctor came in from outside. He talked to the nurse with the blank stare and came over to Carol. "I need a nurse to assist, come on."
"I've got to get back to four east. Half of the patients are up there with no nursing staff."
"I need you here. We'll send someone up when we have someone available. If those two there don't get help real soon, they both loose both legs above the knees. You know what that means, don't you? Let's get to it and see if we can help them."
Angie's blood pressure was lower so she was taken first. It took twenty minutes to pull the glass, tie off worst of the bleeders, and quickly sew up all major cuts. Carol bandaged the legs as the doctor worked. Both legs would have significant scars. With the work done, they moved Angie to the hall. Without stopping, the doctor began with Bev. He felt over her left leg, moved the tourniquet lower, tied it off tightly and moved to the right leg. It took ten minutes to make the repairs. Carol was bandaging the right leg as he moved back to the left leg, removed the glass from above the knee, repaired several cuts and instructed Carol to bandage the area above the knee. The doctor walked away to get a drink. Bev was also given a shot of morphine and moved off to the side. As he moved toward another patient Carol grabbed the doctor's arm, "If we let that tourniquet on she looses the lower part of her leg."
"We take the tourniquet off, she dies. I can't fix the leg. There are dozens of pieces in her left knee. When she moved it the glass destroyed the joint, the blood vessels and the nerves to the lower leg. There's no pulse in her lower leg, even with the tourniquet off. With just the damaged joint, we could fuse the knee, give her a stiff leg. She has no feeling down there, it's dead. I don't have the facilities or time to do the remaining surgery now. We'll keep her on morphine till we can get to her."
Carol knew well what the remaining surgery would be. She began to cry. "Get over here, we don't have time for that. There are people here who will die if we don't take care of them. You can cry later, I know she's a friend but it'll not help her and may kill someone else." Carol spent the remainder of the night working with the doctor. Additional help came in during the night, as they were able. Just after dawn a convoy of army ambulances picked up as many patents as they could handle and moved them to hospitals further inland. Sue and Angie were taken, Bev was left with them. They determined her treatment could be handled there for now and moving her would have been difficult and painful for her. Just after 10 AM the only injured person left was Bev. She was taken to surgery. Carol waited for her to return. She was still at her bedside when Bev woke just after 3PM. An ominous void occupied the bed where the lower portion of her left leg had been.
Jack Dawson heard the planes, but there were always planes in the area around the aircraft plants. He rolled over to go back to sleep. In an hour he would have to be up to go to work on the B-17SG line. Just as he dozed off he was awakened again by a whistling sound he had heard only once before, on a practice bombing range. A bomb was falling, he was sure of that. He shook his wife out of bed, they grabbed the children and headed for the basement stairway. The bomb hit and exploded about a block away as they stared down the stairs. He moved them into the one corner of the basement and they huddled there together.
The bombs continued to fall, Jack could hear them explode around them. One hit the house next door and their house was damaged by the blast. They could hear sirens all around them. When the noise of the planes faded Jack put down his five year old son and made his way up the steps. The house was a shambles, there was no electricity. He found a flashlight and went back for his family. He moved them to the kitchen at the top of the steps then found a second flashlight and gave it to his wife.
He went outside. In the darkness he could see little but the Edward's house was obviously nothing but a pile of rubble. He ran to it and began to look for signs of life. He found Mark Edwards and his wife, both were alive but badly injured. As he dug for their children several neighbors joined the search. Neither was alive when they reached them. He returned to tell Mark and his wife to find they had expired. The whole family had been wiped out. Their efforts had all been for nothing.
The men of the neighborhood began searching one damaged house after another, looking for injured. No help came, they later learned that there were just not enough firemen to go around. They were too busy fighting fires to help dig for the wounded. The residential areas of the city were hard hit. There were twenty dead on just their block. One night shift worker returned home to find his home destroyed and his family dead. He just sat on the curb and cried.
Sixteen explosions rocked the city within an hour. At first the source of the explosions was a mystery. Within an hour a Naval officer who had been in London a year earlier and had seen the V-2 rocket attacks notified the Naval authorities there. Patrol aircraft were sent out to see if they could find the source. It was totally unexpected. They caught four very large German submarines each with two rockets on the deck ready for firing. Before they could press an attack, the rockets were launched and the subs vanished beneath the sea. Nobody knew how many more there would be. One thing for sure, the V-2 had a range of over a hundred fifty miles, any city within that distance of the coast was at risk. The patrol aircraft along the coast were put on full alert, they must at the worst keep the submarines from having enough time to surface and fire. Ideally they could sink them.
The reports from the west coast and the one from New York solidified the resolve of the President and the cabinet as they met in an unusual nighttime session. The result of that meeting was definitive orders to the atomic forces, including the aircrews on Midway and the bomb laboratories in Los Almos. Maximum effort was the watchword.
A second set of orders was sent to the west coast submarine bases. They were needed to make an attack on anything Japanese that floated in the Pacific, and the rocket launchers would make attacks on any tactical targets. The Japanese assault from both sea and land must be stopped at any cost.
What the orders to the various forces did not reflect was the desire of President Dewy to end the war quickly. He was elected as a backlash to Roosevelt's handling of the war, and had been unable to make significant changes. He and his cabinet agreed, the war must end before middle of 1947, if it did not, there could be a revolt. The country was suffering under the weight of the economic impact of a protracted war and the negative impact of continual defeat.
The Peoria, Scranton and Cleveland sailed to the north east at full speed with the Erie and Harrisburg following as escort. They were all at Pearl when the raids occurred, they put to sea within four hours of receiving orders. The three rocket boats had full rocket holds and all five boats had full loads of a new 8 inch ammunition that had a 35 mile range. In addition, all were given extra torpedoes before they sailed. They must reach the coast within three days to hit their assigned targets. A Japanese ground assault force was heading south and the weather had hampered aircraft attacks and would most likely continue to do so for several days. The submarines must do what the aircraft were unable to accomplish.
The Fargo, Salem, Billings and the newly constructed Tulsa were also loaded and would follow to the others to the coast. They were given as much 8 inch anti-aircraft ammunition as was available. Nearly every submarine was being pulled out of the Pacific to protect the west coast.
Four new boats that were either in final sea trials or in transit to the Pacific were put to hunting the German submarines in the Atlantic. The menace to our shores was real, and had to be eliminated. The American people would no longer tolerate any material being sent abroad if it could be used to protect our own people.
Sgt. Brad Bunker was an MP. He was always kidded about guarding the bunkers, a job he frequently drew. Tonight, along with two other platoons, he and his men were guarding six bombs, the total US nuclear arsenal on Midway. Brad looked at the bombs. He had heard rumors that one bomb like one of each of these had wiped out a city. And it was not a fluke, they had done it fourteen times. Sure they were big, but they weren't any larger than the blockbusters he had seen. "How could they destroy a city?" he wondered.
One thing he knew for sure, the men coming back were wide-eyed when they described the destruction of cities. He cringed, what if one went off by accident. He had asked the one of the B-17 gunners about it the night before. The gunner just shrugged, "You'll not have any pain." Brad shivered as he looked at the bombs. They were a fearful sight.
The following morning the air crews were called together. They had flown the mission only a four days before, usually they got ten days, sometimes more than two weeks between major flights. Colonel Dolittle walked to the map with the pointer.
"We have planned raids for three days from today. Some of these will be different from any others you have flown in many ways. We have six bombs here, and we have planes to hit fifteen targets. That leaves nine planes with no bombs here at Midway and they cannot get here for over a week. I just got a message from Los Almos, there are five ready now, and several more are under construction. Six bombers and their support will be making a return to Japan to hit targets that weren't destroyed. The remaining nine crews with their guards and tankers will be flying to New Mexico. There you will be picking up your bombs and given your targets. You will not know exactly where you are going till just before the mission." He finished his speech and left the podium. A roster was posted on the board with dispositions that only designated each group by a number, each group would only know where it was going.
Everyone was surprised by the dispositions. Colonel Dolittle was returning to the states with the eight other bombers. Mearle Jacobs in Bomber 2 would lead the raid on Japan. Even the Tanker lead was being taken by Lew Wesley, one of the pilots who had joined them in the desert. Bob Plank would be going with Dolittle. Nobody seemed to know where that was but one thing was sure, it was important for the leader to be relinquishing control. The other missions were either very difficult or they were very important. An order was given to the maintenance group to make sure all engines were on top line, if any were close to time, they had to be serviced. Three were changed during the day.
Eighteen of the senior ground crewmen were given orders to pack their bags and be ready to leave. They were given lists of the tools and spares to take. Some of the equipment was packed in dummy bomb cases and hung in the B-17 bomb bays, other items were stored in the ammunition racks on the gun ships. Each bomber and each gun ship would carry one of the ground crewmen. Bunker watched as they loaded. Wherever they were going, this force would be about as self sufficient as it could be. "But where could they be going?" he wondered.
The force of fifty seven planes landed at an airport in the New Mexico desert. Within two hours a bomb was placed in the bomb bay of each of the bombers and the gun ships were fully armed. The tankers were topped off as were the other planes. The crews were called together for a joint briefing. At the end of the briefing the nine crews were segregated into groups. Three bomber crews and their gunships and tankers were designated as force one, two additional as force 2, two as force 3 and two as force 4. Each force was individually given a takeoff time and a course. Force one and two were to take off together and head east. The tankers would land at several airports on the east coast and refuel, the bombers and the gunships would remain airborne and fly at a relatively low speed to allow the tankers to catch them. The tankers would again land in England, refuel the bombers and return to the base in England, but the bombers and gunships would continue on. The targets were unnamed. Only the crews of the bombers would know the actual targets. Each pilot was given a sealed envelope before takeoff. After they were in the air they would open the envelopes, unless the targets matched, they would abort the mission. There was one other word on the paper, it was the recall order. Later atomic forces would describe the mission control as "fail deadly". If control of the force was lost it would not turn back, it would complete the mission. A year later this kind of control would be repudiated, no American force would ever be allowed to take off again to bomb without a mid-flight confirmation. It would be called, "fail safe." A loss of communications would result in a recall rather than pressing the attack.
Force three would take off and head north west about 15 hours later and force four would follow about four hours behind it. Although the timing of the second raid did not require the precision of the first raid, it was being timed to have all bombs fall within a half hour.
The pilots of each plane opened their sealed orders. The three pilots on each plane matched the orders and read them to the rest of the crew. By now the two remaining forces had taken off and were headed north west. When they were over the Pacific ocean they too opened their orders and read them to the crews.
In the next eight hours fifteen nuclear weapons fell on targets in Germany, Japan, Truk, Alaska, Italy and off the Pacific coast. Two weapons were targeted at Hitler's bunker, the second plane followed the first by twenty minutes. Other weapons were targeted, one for Berlin, two for Rome, two for Japanese military bases in Alaska, and two for Japanese surface forces off the Pacific coast. All targeted areas were destroyed.
Colonel Yagamuchi had just met with his commanders and determined his force was about spent. Only one regiment could mount an effective assault. It was now about four miles to the rear and west of the lead units. This unit had held the western shoulder and had seen little fighting. In four days his force had covered about one hundred and forty miles. The opposing front was soft, they had swept away the best the enemy had to offer in the initial assault and were now moving south without significant opposition. Only the lack of supplies and the exhaustion of the men were retarding their advance. If they could link to the sea and get reinforcements they could make another thrust, this one would carry them beyond the border, now less than fifty miles to the south, and into the United States. The war would come home to the Americans. He looked at the map, the center of his thrust was thirty miles from the sea. The force would have to move ten miles west, flow through a hole in his own lines and move to the sea. They would take a town with a fishing port, not ideal, but certainly a plus for unloading cargo. He notified headquarters of the situation by radio. He was surprised, the response was to look for reinforcements to be landed as soon as the port was in his hands. They were even now just a few miles off shore.
The assault was set for 0730, the men stepped off through a hole in the line that was created by a barrage of tank fire. The assault troops were surprised at the light resistance. By 1030 the port and town were in their hands. The residents were rounded up and ordered to head to the mountains. Fires were started in the town. With the port in their hands, Yamaguchi notified headquarters. Within two hours ships appeared and soon they were landing men and supplies for the next assault. As fast as units could be assembled they would be pointed south to the line to continue the assault. They would not give the Americans time to recover and regroup.
The Cleveland, Peoria and Scranton were about fifteen miles offshore at 150 feet. They were running silent, and holding position while the Erie and the Harrisburg were moving along the shore, mapping the movement of Japanese troops as they went ashore. By noon they joined the other three boats and passed the coordinates for firing.
At 1300 the five boats were in position for the first firing. The three rocket boats surfaced and laid down a barrage. They targeted the troop and supply concentrations ashore. To create a diversion for them the Erie and Harrisburg surfaced and opened up on the ships in the harbor with the 8 inch guns. Torpedoes would have been more effective but the primary purpose was to create two more targets to distract the Japanese. The escorts opened fire on the boats but it was ineffective and there were no hits. All five boats submerged and headed out to sea. The rocket boats began the reload process while the Erie and Harrisburg went inshore again to select new targets.
Major Sumi looked at the dead around him. Had it not been for a nearby slit trench and some extraordinary luck he too would be dead. Colonel Yamaguchi and the rest of the staff were dead. The supply dump was gone, it just exploded. Only the men who left the ship and advanced quickly were alive. The remaining ships in the harbor were unloading again, men and supplies began moving to the shore. Just as the first ones were landing three submarines surfaced. Within three minutes they launched rockets, bracketing the transports off shore and the small boats moving toward it. Few survived the barrage. Only one transport was left and it was burning.
Major Sumi gathered what men and equipment he could and moved off to the south, to the front. There he took command of the forces and began pushing the front to the south. During the next two days he and his men would move south to the American Border. He would be one of a few Japanese soldiers to set foot on the US Mainland during the war, and one of the few to survive. By this time his force was down to less than five hundred men and they were engaged by a fresh American force with tanks. The Major now knew of the raids at home and the bombing of his base in Alaska. He looked at his men, they had almost nothing left with which to fight, few had more than a half dozen rounds of rifle ammunition, they had nothing to defend against tanks and they knew no more reinforcements or supplies would be coming.
He called for his men to stop firing, the fire on both sides died, then he pulled off his shirt, tied it to a stick and walked slowly out into the open waving it. Within an hour his force were taken prisoner and the mopping up of the area begun. The American troops were more concerned about taking care of the people from the towns than rounding up Japanese. Some were not taken into custody for several days.
Offshore one of the hottest naval battles of the war was being fought, nearly every remaining Japanese surface ship was now arrayed against five American attack submarines and the three rocket boats. The Japanese heavy battle force was steaming north to support the ground troops when they were sighted by the five American submarines. The Erie and Harrisburg lead the attack, the Cleveland, Peoria and Scranton initially pulled back to a safe distance, although they had torpedoes, they were considered too big to be really effective as attack boats. The two smaller subs went in for the attack and it soon became apparent that they could not carry the battle without help. The larger boats moved in and began torpedo attacks but soon everyone was short on torpedoes and there were still many Japanese targets. The battle would become very unorthodox when the Scranton and Cleveland, out of torpedoes and with two Japanese carriers in sight, surfaced and made a joint successful rocket attack on the carriers. Both carriers were out of commission and sinking by the time the two submarines returned to the depths. After seeing the effectiveness of the rocket attack the Peoria surfaced and his the remainder of the fleet with her bay of rockets. Two destroyers and a cruiser were sunk, several other ships were badly damaged.
The new provisional Japanese government had just announced that effective immediately their forces would declare a cease fire. A new German government had done the same several hours earlier and the Free Italian government would follow suit before the day was over. The Allied governments responded to all that they would honor the cease fire for a week but nothing short of unconditional surrender would be accepted. The parties had till November 21 to accept or reject.
The surrenders were signed within three days. The formal occupation of Japan began immediately. It would never be allowed to rearm and its would remain under Allied control. As an independent nation it had ceased to exist. There would be no immediate Allied occupation of Germany and Italy, small military units were sent to each to oversee the disarming of the military and the establishment of the new government. The relief efforts on the West Coast and establishing order in the previously occupied areas of Western Europe had priority.
Relief convoys to Russia began the day after the cease fire. For the first time in nearly eight years the world was not at war. In the back of everyone's mind was the question, how long would last? There was unity in the hope it would be a very long time.
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